The Launch Of Our New Website
Welcome to the JUICE website!
We’re excited to have launched our new website to reach as many people as possible. We want to let young people, their families and professionals and those around them know what we’re doing and what they can get involved in.
First things first, where does the name JUICE youth mental health research unit come from? We worked with a group of young people (our branding consultants) on J17 (Junction 17 | Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS FT (gmmh.nhs.uk)) who developed a brief for our brand and name. They wanted the name to be unrelated to mental health, non-stigmatising and something which couldn’t be made offensive.
The name JUICE also represents health and power which links with our work on physical health interventions in mental health settings and empowering young people in our work on prevention and the voice young people have in our patient and public involvement.
Read more here about this project here: What’s In The Name
What is JUICE all about?
Here at JUICE Youth Mental Health Research Unit we are driven by a passion for young people and our hopes for them. Our vision is to use high quality research to empower every young person to live happy and healthy lives, despite the challenges that they face.
With a key focus on early intervention and prevention, the reduction of stigma and discrimination and improving interventions and young people’s access to them, we are working hard to achieve this. Together we are on a mission to undertake outstanding and innovative mental health research for young people. Our research will improve access to evidence-based treatments and support which makes a difference in the real world.
To read more about our vision and mission statement please read on here: About Us
We believe this will be achieved if we work together, having young people at the heart of everything that we do. How do we do this? We include service users and individuals with lived experience in all parts of our research.
We have a number of groups and ways you might be able to get involved. If you think you can help us and would like to know more please read on here (link to PPI page) and get in touch with us at ymhru@gmmh.nhs.uk.
What are we doing in the field of prevention?
We are leading the way in innovative areas of preventative research for young people with distressing mood swings. We know that most people who later go on to receive a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder describe early experiences of mood fluctuations before the age of 19. We also know that people are often asking for help and even when people are highly distressed by these difficulties they may wait an average of 9.5 years before a diagnosis and subsequent treatments are offered. Such delays in access to treatments could lead to worse outcomes. We believe that access to early help could provide better outcomes and even prevent a future diagnosis of bipolar disorder. If you are interested in finding out more about the trial please read on here: BART II
We are also leading on studies to help design better treatment pathways for young people who are at higher risk of developing psychosis (otherwise described as at risk mental states or ARMS). On one of our studies in this field, a study called IPPACT, we are trying to help identify those who are most in need of the intensive and costly treatment (CBT) offered on the ARMS pathway (e.g. EDIT).
We are testing new measures for understanding who is MOST at risk to help improve the detection of young people who meet the criteria for ARMS. This will tell us who most needs help and should be under these kinds of services. If you would like to know more about this study please read more here: IPPACT
Another important research question which service users have highlighted to us is in understanding why when some people are seen on the ARMS pathway they disengage or in other words, stop attending their appointments. This is the first study of it’s kind to try to understand this important issue and to ensure service users voices are listened to.
Please read here to understand more about this important work: hEARD
What are we doing about the physical health of those who come into mental health services?
We are also working with service users and clinical teams to better understand some of the physical health needs for those who are using mental health services. This has been highlighted as important for a number of reasons.
There has long been a link between our physical and mental health. Taking care of physical health may improve our mental health but we know this is harder to do when we have more mental health needs. We also know that our physical health needs are impacted by an inpatient admission. We are undertaking important research in some of our inpatient areas to understand how lifestyle choices and physical health is affected by inpatient admissions please read on here to understand more about this work Y-HEALTH
We are also interested in understanding the potential of offering a lifestyle intervention (Motiv8) while people are admitted to mental health inpatient areas. We are undertaking key research in this area, utilising the key understanding from service users and clinical teams which has led to the co-production of a lifestyle intervention specifically tailored for service users and the environmental issues which such areas bring about. To understand more about this important are of research continue your reading here: MOTIV8
What are we doing in order to make sure our research is inclusive?
There are many ways to do research, to ensure that research is meaningful and has true impact for NHS patients and our population as a whole. One of the key challenges that has been highlighted by so many people is that often research does not truly represent the UK population.
There are many areas where this could be improved but for us the particular area we are passionate about is to ensure that research participants reflect the rich diversity of our communities. We are working on a project with PPI members from UK ethnic minority backgrounds and community and voluntary sector groups working in this field to make an impact on participation. This work will not only have key learning for our own work but will be of interest to many other researchers too.
Our hopes would be that all young people are offered research opportunities and are confident to make their own choices about what is right for them regardless of their background. If the project has this impact we think it should then we could see our that our research participants better reflect the rich diversity of our UK population which makes sure our results are more valid and generalisable to all young people. We have written more about this work in our recent blog post HERE
These are just some of the key areas of our work that we think people will be interested in reading more about. We also have important information here about our STAFF and how you can get in touch with us for more information or if you would like to get involved Contact Us HERE
Please keep visiting back to our website to keep up to date on our findings, new research and news items of things we think you will be interested in.
From all of the JUICE team!
