About – Triumph Network

About TRIUMPH Network

Childhood and adolescence are key life stages that set the foundations for health in adulthood. However, young people face real challenges to maintain their mental health. They live in an ever-changing environment, driven by changes in technology, communications and the media. Changes that have coincided with an increase in mental health problems, especially amongst girls.

One in ten children and young people experience mental health problems, yet we have few effective solutions for the improvement of youth mental health. Treatment and care, when accessible, treats the problem and not the causes. We believe there is a different approach – one that seeks to understand young people’s strengths, which we can draw on to improve mental health. This approach takes young people themselves as the starting point.

"One in ten children and young people experience mental health problems, yet we have few effective solutions for the improvement of youth mental public health."

To achieve this, the Transdisciplinary Research for the Improvement of Youth Mental Public Health (TRIUMPH) Network brings together young people, health practitioners, policy-makers and those working with voluntary organisations, with academics from across clinical, social sciences, arts and humanities, design, and computer sciences disciplines. By working together we can find new ways to improve mental health and wellbeing, especially among vulnerable and disadvantaged groups where need is greatest. TRIUMPH is part of eight Mental Health Networks funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

TRIUMPH membership

We want to engage widely and bring together groups and individuals from a variety of backgrounds, so that we can learn from each other.

TRIUMPH membership is open to anyone with an interest in young people’s mental health and wellbeing, including young people, service users, those with lived experience, and others directly affected by mental health issues.

Network design

TRIUMPH has three research themes and cross-cutting work packages that are delivered with partners from across the UK.

Young people are central to the TRIUMPH Network. We are working with young people to facilitate their ideas, using a design innovation approach to turn these into reality, into new solutions to improve mental health. In addition, there will be opportunities to apply for funding through the TRIUMPH Network to take forward these research ideas and to support development of new solution focused approaches to improve youth mental health.

Our objectives

Develop effective transdisciplinary, solution-focused partnerships with academics, policy makers, practitioners and young people across the UK

Identify opportunities and challenges in youth mental health, set the agenda, and create research capacity

Generate new, critical approaches to addressing the social, behavioural, organisational, environmental and cultural causes of mental health

Undertake transdisciplinary co-production to develop, evaluate and implement effective and sustainable interventions to accelerate progress in improving youth mental health

TRIUMPH Network Investigators

UKRI Mental Health Networks

The TRIUMPH Network is one of eight mental health networks funded by UKRI. The networks are designed to progress mental health research in themes such as the profound health inequalities for people with severe mental ill health, social isolation, youth and student mental health, domestic and sexual violence, and the value of community assets.

The Emerging Minds Network aims to promote cross-disciplinary and cross-sector research that has the potential to prevalence of mental health problems in children and young people. Based on extensive consultation with young people, their families, practitioners, and policy makers, our activities are focused around four main research challenges: (1) How do we implement effective promotion of good mental health, prevention and early treatment for mental health problems at scale amongst children and young people? (2) How can we best meet the needs of children and young people who have intersecting needs and face complex situations? (3) How can we amplify young people’s voices and change societal attitudes in ways that positively impact on mental health? (4) How can family members, friends and settings, such as schools, be better enabled to promote good mental health and prevent and overcome emerging mental health problems.

The Nurture Network (eNurture) has one primary objective – to improve understanding of how the digital world positively or negatively affects children’s mental health and development through everyday family, school and peer relationship experiences. What does the digital revolution mean for our understanding of how family, school and peer influences affect young people’s mental health? How do we harness opportunities and protect from risks that permeate and surround young people’s social environments as a result of the digital world that they now occupy? How do we empower parents, teachers, professionals, practitioners, policy makers and young people themselves to access evidence-based knowledge and information that supports positive mental health, development and future life chances? Addressing these questions through multidisciplinary engagement and partnership activities represents the core research, practice and real-world impact objectives of eNurture.

The ‘MARCH’ Network proposes that Assets for Resilient Communities lie at the centre of Mental Health (M-ARC-H) and is dedicated to advancing research into the impact of these assets in enhancing public mental health and wellbeing, preventing mental illness and supporting those living with mental health conditions. Specifically, MARCH focuses on social, cultural and community assets including the arts, culture, heritage, libraries, parks, community gardens, allotments, volunteer associations, social clubs and community groups, of which there are an estimated 1 million in the UK.

The Loneliness and Social Isolation in Mental Health research network aims to encourage active cross-disciplinary research collaborations to improve our understanding of the mental health impact of loneliness and social isolation, and how this may be alleviated. We bring together researchers, policy-makers, and voluntary sector practitioners, including those with lived experience of loneliness and social isolation, spanning disciplines including clinical psychology, applied mental health research, social epidemiology, public mental health, human geography, history, civil engineering, health economics, public health, social policy, sociology, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, architecture, geography, the arts, digital design, and human-computer interaction. By scoping the current evidence and on-going work, identifying research priorities, forging collaborations, and providing Plus Project grants for small projects, we aim to plant the seeds for work to reduce the burden of mental ill health by reducing loneliness and social isolation.

A network to understand why people with severe mental illness have some of the worst physical health issues of any section of the population. Our vision is to improve the physical health and reduce the health inequalities for people with severe mental illness.

The SMaRteN focuses on understanding student mental health in higher education. Working with researchers with a range of expertise and key stakeholders across the sector, we aim to improve the understanding of student mental health. Our network takes a Whole University perspective, with a strong focus on understanding the actions that can be taken at a non-clinical level to improve mental health and reduce the prevalence of mental health problems. Students are at the heart of our activities, with all network led activities being supported by our Student Led Research Team.

The Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network (VAMHN) aims to reduce the prevalence of mental health problems among children, adults, and the elderly, by bringing together experts with different ways of thinking about domestic and sexual violence, abuse and mental health – some with personal experience of these issues, others with expertise from the work that they do, and survivor researchers with both. We hope to understand, prevent and reduce the impact of domestic and sexual violence and abuse on mental health.