The Help from Experts by Experience for Researchers (HEER) group is a group of people with lived experience of mental health problems. Our expertise helps to shape and improve research at LYPFT. Our services are available to all mental health researchers.

We are HEER!  

We are a group of service users and carers established in 2006. We all have lived or learned experience of mental health services, and we are enthusiastic about research.

We provide our time and expertise to mental health researchers to help them produce better informed and accessible information that everyone can understand.

Our involvement helps improve mental health research outcomes for others.

We are:

• curious about research,
• people who have lived and learned experience
• people who know that mental health research can be better when we work together.

What we do

We support students, academic and Trust staff through all parts of their research project, from idea to design and on to sharing the results. We provide guidance on how to improve and make the research more appropriate, relevant, and accessible to service users.

We contribute to research and make it better.

Hear from the HEER group

“We share our lived experience in a safe environment. Our expertise means we can talk on behalf of other service users and carers and function as role models. Different studies that we have been involved with include dementia, about anxiety and depression, eating disorders, cardiovascular and heart problems with medications,”

Paul Fraser, HEER group member.

Read interviews with our members and find out what we do –

Interview with a HEER member – Paul Fraser

Interview with a HEER member – Alison Potts

Interview with a HEER member – Rita Dawson

Interested in joining us

We like to stay as a small group, but we can sometimes welcome new members.
You do not need any research or academic knowledge at all.
You just need to be interested in research and keen to share your lived experience and skills.

So, if you are:

• Interested and curious about research
• Able to use your experience to contribute, advise and guide researchers.
• A team player – you enjoy listening and respecting others’ views.
• Able to ask for explanations when things not clear.

Contact us by completing the Get Involved form or calling us on 0113 8552387. We will get back to you within 10 working days. You could also consider joining LYPFT’s Service User Network (SUN). Find out more Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust – Get involved

Alternatively, if you are 25 years old or under you can get involved with other young people at Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust -Get involved with COMIC (leedsandyorkpft.nhs.uk)

How HEER works

After we have reviewed your form, we will invite you to two meetings to observe so that you can meet the other members. You are welcome to take part in discussions about research as an observer.

We invite researcher(s) to our meetings. They may want to talk about their study idea or ask for feedback on written material. We listen and give feedback in an honest way as their critical friend.

We are always emailed or posted the agenda and information about agenda items ahead of meetings for information and review. We are committed to inclusion and make reasonable adjustments for members.

Please note that the group has a maximum of 8-10 members. We may not always be able to offer membership after you have observed at two sessions.

Celebrating HEER

HEER celebrate our 20th anniversary in 2026. When we started user involvement in research was still unusual. Today most research studies are keen to consult with service users and carers from the start Leeds and York researchers look to us to help them produce engaging and accessible research studies that enable them to recruit more participants.

Over the years we have:

• Run our own research project. Bridges to Recovery which investigated which activities help recovery.
• We produced a Poster that won a Best Poster award at the Mental Health Research Network conference in 2010.
• Worked with multiple researchers
• Contributed to over 100 research studies both regional and national
• Met in person and online more than 160 times
• Moved online during Covid. But Covid did not stop our work. We supported the pandemic effort by producing an easy read leaflet encouraging participation in research that was handed out to patients in Meds bags at Clozapine clinics.
• Continued our monthly meetings online, other than 3 or 4 times a year.
• Been Chaired by 3 PRAs but also by our own members.
• Created a video where we talk about our work. You can watch it here

If you are interested in joining HEER or finding out more about what we do, then please fill in our form here.