{"id":1827,"date":"2026-09-28T10:34:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T10:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/per\/?p=1827"},"modified":"2026-09-28T10:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T10:34:07","slug":"rural-mental-health-research-engaging-with-youth-services-and-young-people-across-devon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/per\/2026\/09\/28\/rural-mental-health-research-engaging-with-youth-services-and-young-people-across-devon\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural Mental Health\u00a0Research: Engaging with Youth Services and Young People across Devon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dr Sam Trethewey discusses his recent work with Matt Bakall, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spaceyouthservices.org\/\">Space Youth Services<\/a> and Dr Tamsin Newlove-Delgado, exploring how geographical barriers can affect the mental health of young people living in rural areas. Supported by our 2025-6 Engaged and Participatory Research Fund, this project drew directly on young people&#8217;s experiences, and the expertise of youth services.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amount of award: \u00a34000<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This project focused on patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) in mental health research, specifically how rurality and deprivation affect the mental health of young people. Using funding from the Engaged &amp; Participatory Research Fund, the project&nbsp;established&nbsp;a partnership between researchers, youth services&nbsp;across rural Devon,&nbsp;and young people,&nbsp;enabling&nbsp;young people&nbsp;to&nbsp;help shape a three-year programme of rural mental health research.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Specific engagement activities&nbsp;were designed to ensure that the voices and experiences of rural young people directly informed the development of future research, and&nbsp;included:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Building relationships&nbsp;with&nbsp;youth workers&nbsp;and young people&nbsp;via&nbsp;three rural youth centres.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Organising and running&nbsp;multiple drop-in&nbsp;research&nbsp;engagement sessions.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Developing and distributing an online survey to improve accessibility and reach.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Running a focused workshop with young people to explore research priorities,&nbsp;methods&nbsp;and study design.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Co-developing engagement materials, information&nbsp;sheets&nbsp;and governance processes to support future involvement work.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This&nbsp;project strengthened the quality and relevance of the&nbsp;wider&nbsp;research by&nbsp;providing&nbsp;direct insight into the experiences,&nbsp;priorities&nbsp;and concerns of&nbsp;young people&nbsp;in rural&nbsp;areas. It increased understanding of issues&nbsp;and research priorities&nbsp;such&nbsp;as&nbsp;rural isolation&nbsp;and&nbsp;transport barriers,&nbsp;as well&nbsp;as&nbsp;stigma, access to support, and the impact of digital technologies on mental health. The engagement also informed&nbsp;approaches to&nbsp;future research,&nbsp;including recruitment&nbsp;strategies, study&nbsp;design&nbsp;and research questions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Young people benefited by having a meaningful opportunity to share their views and influence research that may&nbsp;ultimately&nbsp;impact&nbsp;services and support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Broader benefits included the creation of a new partnership between the University of Exeter and local youth services,&nbsp;informed&nbsp;by the&nbsp;valuable&nbsp;practical&nbsp;expertise&nbsp;of&nbsp;youth workers.&nbsp;This project also&nbsp;supported&nbsp;the&nbsp;development of an improved governance framework for engagement&nbsp;activities, and&nbsp;increased&nbsp;the&nbsp;public accessibility and impact of mental health research.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The biggest challenge&nbsp;of the project&nbsp;was engaging young people across diverse rural settings while balancing flexibility, safeguarding,&nbsp;and differing local contexts. This was addressed through&nbsp;the&nbsp;cultivation&nbsp;of&nbsp;strong relationships with youth workers, adapting approaches to each setting, and allowing engagement activities to remain informal and youth-centred where&nbsp;appropriate.&nbsp;Another challenge was navigating administrative and financial processes associated with managing the award. This was overcome through support from project partners and the University&#8217;s&nbsp;Public&nbsp;Engagement team.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A key lesson, therefore,&nbsp;was that relationship building is fundamental to successful engagement. Informal visits, listening to participants, using flexible approaches, and working alongside trusted youth workers helped&nbsp;establish&nbsp;trust and generate richer discussions.&nbsp;The next step is to build on the relationships&nbsp;established&nbsp;through this project by continuing to&nbsp;use these&nbsp;approaches, and&nbsp;involve young people and youth workers throughout future research. Planned activities include further workshops, co-design of study materials, involvement in interpreting findings, and&nbsp;the&nbsp;co-production of&nbsp;outputs such as infographics,&nbsp;posters&nbsp;and podcasts.&nbsp;The current work has provided&nbsp;a strong foundation&nbsp;for a wider programme of rural mental health research, ensuring that future studies are grounded in lived experience and informed by those most affected.&nbsp;We&nbsp;will also seek&nbsp;additional&nbsp;funding to sustain engagement activities and expand opportunities for collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the longer term, these activities are expected to improve the relevance,&nbsp;quality&nbsp;and impact of research, while helping&nbsp;to&nbsp;ensure that evidence better informs mental health services,&nbsp;policy&nbsp;and support for young people&nbsp;in rural communities.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Sam Trethewey discusses his recent work with Matt Bakall, Space Youth Services and Dr Tamsin Newlove-Delgado, exploring how geographical barriers can affect the mental health of young people living in rural areas. Supported by our 2025-6 Engaged and Participatory Research Fund, this project drew directly on young people&#8217;s experiences, and the expertise of youth services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2305,"featured_media":1869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,33,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-study","category-engaged-and-participatory-research-fund","category-funding"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rural Mental Health\u00a0Research: Engaging with Youth Services and Young People across Devon - Public Engagement with Research (PER) at the University of Exeter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/per\/2026\/09\/28\/rural-mental-health-research-engaging-with-youth-services-and-young-people-across-devon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rural Mental Health\u00a0Research: Engaging with Youth Services and Young People across Devon - Public Engagement with Research (PER) at the University of Exeter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr Sam Trethewey discusses his recent work with Matt Bakall, Space Youth Services and Dr Tamsin Newlove-Delgado, exploring how geographical barriers can affect the mental health of young people living in rural areas. Supported by our 2025-6 Engaged and Participatory Research Fund, this project drew directly on young people&#039;s experiences, and the expertise of youth services.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/per\/2026\/09\/28\/rural-mental-health-research-engaging-with-youth-services-and-young-people-across-devon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Public Engagement with Research (PER) at the University of Exeter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-28T10:34:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-28T10:34:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/per\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/327\/2026\/09\/Tremough-Bluebells.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Catherine Hurcombe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Catherine Hurcombe\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/per\/2026\/09\/28\/rural-mental-health-research-engaging-with-youth-services-and-young-people-across-devon\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/per\/2026\/09\/28\/rural-mental-health-research-engaging-with-youth-services-and-young-people-across-devon\/\",\"name\":\"Rural Mental Health\u00a0Research: Engaging with Youth Services and Young People across Devon - 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