On 30 May 2024, our North East and North Cumbria Research Engagement Network (REN) held a well-attended shared learning event, at One Strawberry Lane, in Newcastle. Representatives from across the Voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector joined academics, researchers and health leaders, as well as children and young people from across the North East and North Cumbria, to help establish a new network with a focus on mental health in young people.

The purpose of the new network is to build better linkages between children and young people, the VCSE and universities and research organisations across the North East and North Cumbria, to ensure that the best research into young people's mental health influences decisions about service provision in the future.

The event heard from VCSE partners, and health leaders including Claire Riley, the ICB's Chief Corporate Services Officer; Lisa Taylor, Health & Wellbeing Programme Director for Voluntary Organisations' Network North East (VONNE); and Dr Shona Haining Partnerships Lead and Deputy Implementation Lead for the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) in the NENC area.

Attendees were also able to hear video messages from some of our delivery partners, as well as potted case studies of the excellent work being undertaken by North East Wellbeing; the Young Women’s Outreach Project; People First; and NE Youth.

The event closed with coproduction and networking sessions, which allowed attendees to discuss their expectations for the new network, as well as help shape the key aims and research priorities of the network going forward, as well as how we draw on learning from other networks across the sector.

Over the coming months, it is envisaged that the new network will undertake a series of further shared learning events, to allow for closer collaboration between partners. The overall goal is to cumulatively build a robust research culture in the North East and North Cumbria, that will drive improvements in health and wellbeing through collaborative and impactful research, which will deliver real benefits for children and young people's mental health service provision.

The second REN shared learning event took place on Monday 3rd March, at One Strawberry Lane. The aims of the event were to hear from research and community partners; support organisations to learn more about each other; highlight some key barriers to involvement in research and work together to identify practical and realistic solutions; and learn how our Community Engagement Toolkit can support better partnership working going forwards.

We hope that the learning from this event will help us take the network forward and allow us to further develop our matching tool to enable researchers and VCSE organisations to better engage children and young people in mental health research.