Children’s Health SIG

Children's Health Special Interest Group

Focus and purpose

To provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, knowledge, information and best practice for those interested in the application of behavioural medicine to the early modification of children’s lifestyle behaviours encompassing the broader factors that influence children’s social, emotional and cognitive development, and the interventions that can improve them.

By bringing together researchers, clinicians, third sector organisations and public/patient representatives to facilitate the exchange of information exploring the complex relationship between children’s lifestyle behaviours, wellbeing and health, and including individual-level, population-level and multi-level interventions, the SIG aims to enhance networks and collaborations as an opportunity to decrease risks of developing non-communicable diseases in adulthood.

Planned activities

Holding conference symposia, webinars, and one-day meetings to raise the profile of relevant work focused on children, their behaviours and their environments
Supporting liaison between UKSBM and other national and international professional organisations relevant to children’s lifestyle behaviours
Disseminating relevant topic updates and information to members
Facilitating connection between members and the NIHR School of Public Health Research

Events

Past Events

Children’s Health Special Interest Group Webinar – Child and adolescent mental health: a research spotlight

The UK SBM Special Interest Group in Child Health hosted an interesting and thought-provoking webinar on child and adolescent mental health in early November 2024.

We heard from two researchers who have been undertaking mental health and wellbeing research with particular child and adolescent groups.

Dr Abby Russell from the University of Exeter spoke about ‘Supporting schools to support students with traits of ADHD – Developing and feasibility-testing a toolkit based on principles of behaviour change’.

Dr Nina Higson-Sweeney from the University of Bath presented her PhD research on ‘Fatigue in adolescent depression: What now, and what next?’.

We thank our speakers for such engaging and interesting presentations.

The webinar was recorded for those that were unable to attend and can be accessed here; passcode: 9=qd#.%z

UKSBM Annual Scientific Meeting in Glasgow (13th-14th March)
Child Health SIG session on Wednesday, March 13, 11:40 AM – 12:55 PM
With oral presentations on:
Promoting healthier food in secondary schools: Stakeholder views on actions for enhancing school food policy and practice – Alexandra Dobell
Sexual Harassment in Scottish Secondary Schools: Preliminary Baseline Data from the Equally Safe at School Randomised Trial – Malachi Willis
A mixed methods systematic review of interventions to improve adolescent sleep across the socioecological model – Catriona Ewart
The session finished with an opportunity for the attendees to share their views on what they would like to see at future Child Health SIG events. We would like to thank the speakers and the audience for their valuable contributions to this session.

Childrens Health Special Interest Group Webinar success – Engaging Young People in PPI, February 2024

The Childrens Health Special Interest Group hosted a successful online webinar in early February – ‘Engaging young people in PPI’. Nearly 100 attendees joined the session to hear from two speakers who shared their research and experiences of working with young people in their research.

Elanor Hinton, who is a Research Fellow at the Bristol Biomedical Research Centre, spoke about ‘Integrating and evaluating PPI with young people within a co-development project: designing ‘AIM2Change’, a weight-management intervention both for and with young people’.

Lauren Cross who is based in the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge delivered a talk: ‘Capturing all voices: a thematic synthesis of participation experiences in school-based health research’.

Both Elanor’s and Lauren’s talks were engaging and brought to life with photos and video clips of their work. This generated lots of discussion and questions from the audience, but unfortunately we did not have time to answer them all. We have picked out the questions that we didn’t get to answer, and Elanor and Lauren have kindly written some responses below. The session was also recorded (see below).

Webinar recording

Passcode: hvxxZ4.=

Post-webinar Q&A

What do you mean by ‘public contributor’?

Lauren: Also referred to as ‘public collaborators’ and ‘public partners’, a public contributor is a member of the public who is involved or engaged with the research process. They typically will have lived experienced of the research topic and/or will be interested in/impacted by the research itself. They can ‘contribute’ in lots of different ways from helping to shape research questions/methods to developing and sharing results.

Elanor: The short definition I noted down was: Young people or adults who attended one or more PPI sessions, and contributed to those sessions on the basis of their lived experience.

It can be difficult to know how best to refer to the people contributing to your research. I know some people are not keen on ‘public contributor’, so we sometimes use a group name like Young person’s Advisory group (YPAG) or Patient and Public Advisory Group (PPAG), then refer to individuals as members of those groups. In an early meeting for the AIM2Change project, we asked the attendees what they would like the group to be called, and they came to the consensus that PPAG was most favoured.

What are the barriers to involving young people in PPI?

Lauren: Barriers will be slightly different depending on the population and type of involvement. However, barriers typically may include…

Researchers time and budget constraints can make it challenging to sufficiently invest in setting up meaningful PPI with young people. Some funders offer small PI&E specific grants, so it might be worth exploring what additional funds are available to you and/or allowing plenty of time to build relationships/recruit young people when scheduling activities.
Knowledge barriers: understanding of technical language, complex constructs, or research methods can make it difficult for young people to access conversations about research. Building in training and using plain English can help break down this barrier.
Scheduling: young people’s lives can be really busy, so finding a time which works isn’t always easy. Try and work as flexibly as possible and talk to young people about what would work best.

4. Capturing diverse voices: a lack of diversity within PPI is an established barrier. Involving young people with different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives is important for building a richer understanding. Working with established community groups & structures/taking time to build authentic relationships will help build greater diversity of young people’s voices into research.

5. Engagement: making sessions enjoyable & purposeful can help improve retention. Create safe spaces where young people can be open and honest can enhance comfort, whereas creative methods can make it more enjoyable/help springboard discussion. Finally, showing how young people have shaped your thinking and changes you’ve made to the project can help signify that you’re paying attention/they’re making a difference.

Elanor: A few additional ideas to add to Lauren’s:

Finding and engaging with the young people with the particular experience that is relevant to your topic can be the first barrier, especially if you are looking for those younger than 16. Suggest engaging with relevant charities, services for young people, and schools.
Accessibility to the sessions whether in person or online is another potential barrier. Getting to the sessions, if not hosted by a school or community group, could be difficult, especially when relying on public transport and/or parents who work. With regards to online sessions, having a safe, quiet place to join online can be difficult for some of the attendees. Consider accessibility to the sessions for the young people with the relevant experience for your research – perhaps talk to some young people or their parents or contacts (e.g. community group leaders) to gauge whether in person or online is most suitable/preferable to those young people.
For online sessions, for reasons of increasing diversity and inclusion, it is important to check that some young people are not excluded by not having the necessary technology to join a meeting. To be as inclusive as possible, request funds in grant bids for tablets and sims to allow young people to get connected into your PPI sessions.