A bulletin board filled with numerous colorful sticky notes and printed sheets covering topics related to gender differences, adolescence, and mental health.

Five women sitting at a conference table reviewing documents, with papers, notebooks, and a smartphone on the table, in a well-lit room with large windows and potted plants.

“Nothing

about us

without us”

- that’s the ethos of the Bridging Divides project’s Youth Leadership Team (YLT)

Group of women sitting around a table engaged in a discussion or meeting, with papers, notebooks, and food including plates of snacks and glasses of drinks on the table.

A group of people sitting around a conference table in a meeting room with large windows and city buildings outside, engaged in a discussion.

London

Youth Leadership Team (YLT)

Adna, Karima, Niiokani, Jonas and Thai-Sha are five young people who grew up in Lambeth & Southwark and have been co-producing research with staff at King’s College London for over four years. They are equal partners on the project alongside the academics and ensure that lived experience expertise is incorporated at every stage of the research project – from generating hypotheses to dissemination strategies. Their role on the Bridging Divides project will be to oversee all aspects of youth involvement in London, work together with their counterparts in Tokyo, and mentor a new generation of co-researchers to ensure that Bridging Divides accurately represents the experiences of young people today.

Tokyo

Youth team

An upward trending arrow in dark blue on a black background.

The Tokyo Youth Team is a group of young co-researchers working with the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science. They first took part in the Tokyo Teen Cohort as study participants, and have now joined as partners in shaping the research. They play a key role in making sure the study's design reflects the lived experiences of today's youth in Tokyo.

As part of the Bridging Divides project, they work closely with the YLT members, exchanging ideas about cultural differences and what's common across generations. Their goal is to ensure the surveys are both relevant to their own cultures and, as much as possible, comparable between the two social contexts of London and Tokyo.