Dr Emilia Trapasso is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Public Engagement, funded by Wellcome, working in the Health Inequalities Policy Research group in the Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems at the University of Liverpool.

Key drivers for her work include delivering and evaluating public engagement activities across the Liverpool City Region, to understand how people perceive health and health inequalities, explore how data is used to inform policy, and to foster the ownership of the Children Growing Up in Liverpool birth cohort study in the wider community

Emilia completed her PhD at the University of Liverpool, funded through CLAHRC-NWC, working with the Mersey Forest.

Emilia now works alongside Dr Rebecca Geary (Senior Lecturer, Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems), Laura Winters (Public Engagement Officer for the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences) and Dr Shaima Hassan (Public involvement and engagement research lead at the ARC NWC). Shaima joined Emilia and the team as co-investigator to support the focus of the grant which is public engagement and empowering the public voice in influencing research.

In this blog, Emilia shares the team’s experience of attending the Liverpool School’s Parliament public engagement event, which is one of many patient and public involvement activities the team has been involved in.

Liverpool School’s Parliament – Public Engagement Event by Emilia Trapasso

The morning started with an open discussion, where we were able to talk to over 100 primary school aged children from across the city. They were given a task to draw what they considered to be a ‘happier and healthier future’. Take a look at some of the images the young people drew…

The afternoon session was group tasks for secondary school children. Approximately 50 teenagers took part in a Lego Serious Play activity, where they created their own versions of a healthy city. Here are some of the Lego cities that were built on the day:

Whilst the children and young people were drawing and creating Lego cities, they were given the opportunity to engage and interact with the Young Voices, Big Ideas ‘Pop-Up’. Myself, the team and a public advisor were on hand to help guide the process and explain what they needed to do. The children and young people finished the sentence “My future could be happier and healthier if…” through three methods; hand-written post-it notes can be physically added to the ‘Pop-Up’, digital messages can be sent via Whatsapp, and most popularly, voices can be audio recorded with our team. Here are some of the children and young people’s suggestions for making their future happier and healthier…

LSPP_74- “It would be a happier healthier place if everyone was less violent and kinder in what they do and say.”

LSPS_7– “My future could be happier and healthier if everyone felt more comfortable walking home alone.”

LSPP_69- “My future could be happier and healthier if the food was more affordable.”

LSPS_8– “If there was more freedom and if people were accepted for who they are.”

The engagement activity was co-designed with the young person’s advisory group and a team of adult public advisors, aiming to be inclusive and welcoming for even our shiest visitors, those who use British Sign Language or where English if not their first language. Again, empowering a variety of children and young people across the city to have their voices and opinions heard on a public platform, where change is key.

One of our public advisors, Audra, played a key role in this project to ensure that inclusion and diversity was part of our approach. Audra helped and supported us throughout the day and wanted to share her own experience: “It was a unique experience to see the different perspective between primary and secondary school children. Also, how the world problems affect even the smallest children. And personally, it was a nice day out for me talking and meeting new people. Thank you very much for the opportunity, it was really appreciated.”

The different activities from Liverpool School’s Parliament event, and our other engagement activities across the city, may be incorporated within our final activity, a public installation at the Museum of Liverpool, from 18th October to 3rd November 2024. We look forward to seeing many of you there. I will leave you with one final quote from one of our young people:

LSPP_76– “Everyone wants to make the world a better place, it is just how we do it that we disagree on.”