On 4th February, IMPROVA once again had the pleasure of participating in the Mental Health Dialogues webinar series in conjunction with our sister projects; MentBest, ASPbelong, SMILE, ADVANCE Mental Health, Net&Me BootStRaP and Reconnected.
This edition focussed on reaching vulnerable populations in research, and our panelist was Dr Hester Sijstma, a postdoctoral researcher in Clinical, Neuro- and Developmental Psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Within the IMPROVA project, she is part of the Work Package 1 team, which studies the determinants of mental health and wellbeing in adolescents. During the webinar, she engaged with the other panelists in sharing their experiences of working with vulnerable groups and spoke about the importance of meeting adolescent and younger populations in a way that allows them to see the value in participating in research. That’s why IMPROVA adopts a co-creation approach, making sure that everyone’s voices are heard and the perspectives of teens, their parents and their teachers are taken into account in designing the programme. The session provided some fantastic insights from a team of experienced international researchers as well as input from one of the MentBest co-creators, who shared about her lived experience.
Make sure to sign up for future Mental Health Dialogues webinars here
View the full recording and subscribe to our YouTube channel here
Visit our sister projects’ websites:
MentBest – https://mentbest.com/
ASPbelong – https://www.augmentedsocialplay.com/
ADVANCE Mental Health – https://advancementalhealth.ku.dk/
SMILE – https://www.horizonsmile.eu/
Net&Me BootStRaP – https://www.internetandme.eu/
Reconnected – https://reconnected-project.eu/