YPMH works across the full pathway from understanding young people’s mental health to developing and implementing solutions. We focus on significant unmet needs and bring together people and organisations with the evidence, expertise and perspectives required to address them.
Young people’s mental health is shaped by interacting biological, psychological and social factors and by the environments and systems in which people live, learn and receive support. We therefore look beyond individual projects or disciplines, considering how research, innovation, practice, policy and wider systems need to connect to improve outcomes.
Our Understand : Innovate : Implement methodology provides a structured framework for this work. It connects the development of shared understanding, the identification and advancement of promising solutions and the conditions required for successful adoption, sustained use and scale. The three activities are connected and iterative, with learning and structured engagement running throughout.
Start with a precise understanding of the opportunity and the challenge
We begin by developing a joined-up understanding of how mental health conditions develop, the key risk factors and mechanisms involved and the opportunities for prevention, earlier identification, diagnosis, personalised management and treatment. We also identify significant unmet needs, the people affected and the outcomes that matter. This precise and shared understanding helps identify where intervention may make the greatest difference and prevents activity from being shaped too early around a preferred solution.
Take a systems and whole-pathway perspective
We examine connected influences on mental health and the wider pathway through which an intervention must progress. This includes the decisions, evidence, capabilities, resources, infrastructure and system conditions required to move from research and early ideas to development, validation, adoption and sustained use.
Combine evidence, expertise and lived experience
Different forms of knowledge reveal different parts of a complex challenge. We combine research evidence with practice, innovation and system expertise. We engage young people, families and people with lived experience so that their needs, perspectives, priorities and experiences inform the work throughout.
Make collaboration purposeful
Bringing people together does not by itself create shared understanding, good decisions or coordinated action. We design collaboration around clear questions, appropriate evidence, defined decisions and practical next steps. Structured engagement, facilitated analysis and transparent prioritisation help participants move from different perspectives towards shared priorities and action.
Consider implementation from the outset
Promising ideas can fail when the needs of intended users, the requirements of implementers or the conditions for adoption are considered too late. We bring these requirements into innovation and planning from the beginning, then use learning from development and real-world implementation to refine understanding and strengthen subsequent action.
Complex mental health challenges require contributions from different disciplines, sectors and forms of knowledge and experience. The people involved will vary according to the challenge and the decisions that need to be made.
We collaborate with researchers, innovators, practitioners, educators, health and social care organisations, policymakers, funders and others able to help develop, fund, adopt or implement change.
We engage young people, families and people with lived experience through consultations and other structured activities so that their needs, perspectives, priorities and experiences inform the understanding of the challenge, the development of potential solutions and decisions about implementation.
By building communities of interest around defined challenges, we help connect people, evidence and resources, develop shared priorities and create opportunities for coordinated action.
YPMH designs and applies structured engagement methods, including workshops, consultations, facilitated analysis and prioritisation. We also help collaborators plan and progress innovation and implementation projects.
Depending on the challenge, we help collaborators:
Developing and refining our methodology
YPMH has developed and refined Understand : Innovate : Implement over seven years. We work with researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing and with IfM Engage, the Institute’s knowledge-transfer company. This long-standing collaboration draws on their internationally recognised expertise in innovation management, roadmapping and innovation systems. It has been particularly important to the development of the Innovate component and has also contributed to the wider development and application of the methodology.
We welcome opportunities to work with people and organisations that share our ambition to prevent and reduce mental ill health and improve the support available to children and young people.
If you are developing, funding, adopting or implementing an approach that could improve young people’s mental health – or have evidence, expertise or experience that could help shape one – we would be pleased to hear from you.
