Progressing participatory research with young people in India: how a youth advisory board supported a large mental health project in Bengaluru

Background

Action is needed to advance youth mental health research in India, and young people could significantly contribute to this. However, youth involvement in Indian research is rare, largely due to cultural norms around how research is done and the place of young people in society. There are calls for guidance on how youth involvement could be accelerated in India in ways that respect cultural norms. Youth Advisory Boards (YABs) are one means of doing this, but resources are needed to support their practical implementation in India. Our paper aims to promote the practice of YABs by detailing our experiences, challenges and solutions around hosting a YAB as part of a large mental health project based in Bengaluru, India.

Main body

We hosted a YAB (n = 17 members) over three years in Project SAMA (Safeguarding Adolescent Mental Health in India). SAMA was a co-production and feasibility study of a whole-school program to address youth anxiety and depression. We viewed youth perspectives and lived experience as valuable forms of knowledge, and our ambition was for the YAB to enhance the relevance, cultural sensitivity, and effectiveness of our research. A systematic approach was adopted for the recruitment, engagement, and capacity building of YAB members. The team strived to support meaningful engagement and participatory decision-making. The YAB contributed significantly to refining our intervention, improving research tools, and contextualising findings. We identified key challenges and enablers in implementing the YAB in India.

Conclusion

Despite the stigma attached to mental health in India, our study shows that YABs are a feasible platform to support the involvement of young people in mental health research there. Based on our learning, we set out six recommendations to support YABs in Indian mental health research. These recommendations encourage research teams to: identify diversity and representation goals for YAB constitution; delineate the opportunities and boundaries of youth influence on project delivery; allocate sufficient resources to YAB recruitment, training, activities and communication; consider how young people’s learning and accessibility needs and preferences can be ethically surfaced; and plan the monitoring and recording of the YAB’s influence as well as the delivery and evaluation of reciprocal benefits to young people directly.