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Abstract

Background
While co-production is increasingly emphasised in youth mental health research, few studies have explored how young people themselves conceptualise and evaluate responsible and dialogic co-production. Understanding young people’s perspectives is essential to ensure that participation is meaningful and protective, rather than tokenistic or exploitative. This paper offers a retrospective reflection on a three-year UK youth mental health programme that embedded youth involvement and co-production from the outset, at multiple levels (research participation, advisory, and leadership).

Objective
This study examines how young people involved in a UK youth mental health research articulate, from their own perspective, what counts as ‘meaningful co-production’, centring its responsible, relational, and dialogic dimensions.

Design
A Qualitative Secondary Analysis was undertaken, applying Reflexive Thematic Analysis to explore patterns and meanings in participant accounts.

Setting and Participants
Data comprised responses from five young people (three females, two males; M = 21 years, SD = 2.74) via an online open-ended survey, and a focus group with eight young people (seven females, one male; M = 25.63 years, SD = 3.03). All participants had lived experience and were under 24 years old when they began their involvement in the youth mental health research programme on which this study is based.

Results
Two central themes emerged: (1) “We just want to be cared about”: Coproduction is caring, and (2) “Please, show up as a person, not as a ‘researcher’”: Coproduction as a dialogic process. Young people emphasised that meaningful co-production, in youth mental health, is relational and affective (i.e., rooted in emotional care, mutual respect, flexibility, and dialogue) and that the living experience of mental health is continuous and demands sensitivity.

Discussion
These insights challenge procedural or ritualistic approaches to participation. Instead, they foreground care, reflexivity, power-sharing, and researcher presence as ethical prerequisites of co-production. The findings align with Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) principles, highlighting the need to embed structural supports for emotional safety and relational engagement from the outset.

Conclusions
Meaningful co-production in youth mental health research requires embedding relational ethics into design and practice, ensuring young people are engaged as whole persons and partners. This model moves beyond procedural inclusion toward genuinely participatory research.
Patient or Public Contribution
Young people with lived experience co-designed the study materials, co-facilitated the focus group, contributed to the interpretation, and co-authored the manuscript – ensuring that their perspectives are central to the study.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This article will be published in Health Expectations by WIley and it will be available at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/13697625
Publisher Keywords:	Co-production; Dialogic; Youth Mental Health; Responsible Research and Innovation
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Department of Nursing & Midwifery
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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