“My Day is Already Planned Out Before I Even Get to Choose it”: Using Youth-Oriented Research to Understand and Measure What Matters to Youth Aged 12-15 Years and the Implications for Mental Health Services
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Voices and experiences of youth aged 12-15 years are rarely heard and prioritized. Understanding their perspectives is essential for tailoring effective mental health interventions and supports. As such, this qualitative study, co-designed with a youth advisory committee (n=7), interviewed 19 youth (aged 12-15 years) to explore their understanding of good mental health. Interviews were analyzed thematically following a reflexive thematic analysis approach. Three overarching themes were identified: 1) Everything is OK, describing a state of being able to manage the challenges of life, 2) Building Personal Strength and Resources, needed to maintain good mental health as an adolescent, and 3) Seeking Acceptance and Community, emphasizing the profound influence of social connections. Addressing adolescent mental health effectively requires a nuanced understanding of their perspectives to develop responsive and impactful mental health interventions and their active involvement in all facets of service design, research, and policymaking. PLAIN LANGUAGE TITLE: "My day is already planned out before I even get to choose it": Understanding what matters to youth aged 12-15 years and the implications for mental health services Youth aged 12-15 years are at a key developmental age and actively seek mental health services, yet their perspectives on these mental health services are rarely heard. Understanding what good mental health means to them is essential for creating support systems that meet their needs. This study explored how youth define good mental health. We worked with a youth advisory committee (n=7, aged 12-15 years) to co-design the research. Then, we interviewed 19 youth (aged 12-15 years, median age 14) from British Columbia, Canada, to learn about their views. Using an analysis approach that identifies patterns or themes in a way that reflects on the authors own perspectives and the process of analysis, we identified three key themes: 1. Everything is OK - Youth described good mental health as balancing their emotions to be able to handle life's challenges, including school and family pressures. 2. Building Personal Strength and Resources - Youth emphasized the importance of developing coping skills, confidence, and self-awareness to support their mental well-being. 3.Seeking Acceptance and Community - Youth highlighted the role of supportive relationships in having good mental health. These findings show that youth mental health is deeply connected to youths' environment, social connections, and ability to navigate challenges. To support them effectively, we must listen to their perspectives and include them in shaping mental health services, research, and policies. By prioritizing their voices, we can create meaningful and accessible mental health resources that align with their needs.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".