Improving Mental Health & Wellbeing of Young People in Barnsley: Our Voice Matters, Lecture notes of Voice

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Our Voice Matters,

Innit

Manifesto

Making Our Voices Heard: call to action

and change

In Barnsley, the OASIS group

(Opening up Awareness and

Support, and Influencing

Services) have been using

creative consultations to talk

other children and young

people about mental health

and emotional wellbeing, to

find out what they need and

what problems they face.

Now we want to raise our

voices to tell others what

we’ve found out!

The Our Voice Matters,

Innit? manifesto draws on our

key findings and shows some

of the issues and difficulties

children and young people

are dealing with in Barnsley,

and more importantly, what

has worked well for them!

It is our Call to Action and

Change, with 8 Key

Recommendations, that we

hope will inspire children,

young people, families,

communities, professionals

and politicians to focus more

attention on improving the

emotional wellbeing and

mental health of young

people.

We want to see everyone in

Barnsley work togetether to

reduce stigma and isolation.

To ensure that supporting

young people’s resilience,

emotional wellbeing, and

mental health are everyone’s

priority.

These stories illustrate the

key problems young people

face and how they can be

improved by Barnsley’s

services and the wider

community.

We hope that they will inspire

everyone to think about what

they can do to respond to the

recommendations - as

individuals, members of

organisations and

communities, and as service

providers, commissioners and

policy makers.

Unite Us: put in place peer support

programmes for young people

How would you support someone close to you?

Name: Shelly

Gender: Non binary

Age: 15

Sexuality: Pansexual

I go to a youth group that has

a peer-mentoring project for

young people in the

community. It’s really good

because other young people

who all have similar

experiences and

understanding run it.

A teacher at school told me about the youth group and the peer- mentoring project. I needed some support and this is something that worked for me.

Peer support unites us. It gives young people a chance to come together and talk about our issues openly with each other. We make new friends at the group, have a right laugh and build our self- esteem and confidence at the same time.

I’ve built a great relationship with my mentor and I know the other

mentors well. The group provides me with regular activities and a break from home, away from my caring responsibilities. I even get access to a quiet space to catch up on my school work in a relaxing place.

Providing emotional care for my mum who has mental illness is important and I’m glad to be there for her but sometimes I need time for me, which I recognise now. My mentor has shown me different healthy coping mechanisms, which actually work, and I feel more positive about my future and passing my exams at school.

The peer mentors are going to train new young people to become mentors and I think I’d be a good person to help others in the future. I think peer-mentoring projects would be good in different settings. They would support young people moving from primary to secondary school and then into higher education.

It would be great to see this kind of support in other places like mental health in-patient hospitals and supported accommodation. If young people work together it will UNITE US.

The majority of young people talked about the value of friendships, naming their friends as a key source of support. Young people involved in groups said that by meeting people of a similar age, with similar experiences, their confidence had improved as well as their general wellbeing. This highlights the need for peer support in relation to mental health and it is

recommended that peer support models be developed,

as well as therapeutic group work activities, to support

young people’s emotional wellbeing and mental health.

Whilst approximately 50% of those we spoke to had heard about mental health within schools, this was not

routinely implemented across all settings. It is therefore

recommended that there be more of a focus on mental health education within schools and colleges. This could include assemblies around mental health, workshops, peer-led sessions and talks from external organisations/ mental health providers, and those with lived experience of mental ill health. Young people said they would want this to start in primary school. This would enable young people to understand more about managing their emotions and signs of mental ill health and where to go for support earlier on and prevent issues from escalating at a later age.

Stuck in an ‘Ole: improve signposting

and information

Would you know where to go for help?

Name: Chrissie

Gender: female

Age: 19

Sexuality: Heterosexual

I’m at college part time but

I also work one day a week.

I needed some support

around depression after I

recently lost my dad to

cancer and found it hard to

cope. I didn’t know who to

turn to or where to start…

My mum encouraged me to see my GP when I was 18 years old and my GP referred me to a mental health service. It was all quite daunting and scary.

I didn’t know what was going to happen next, I was told I would be contacted by the service to book an appointment. I didn’t get a phone call and it had been a few days since the doctor referred me to the service

and I was starting to feel more worried. I already felt STUCK IN AN ‘OLE and I’d actually talked to a professional about how I felt and

somehow I still felt stuck. I then got a letter for my first appointment one week after visiting the GP. The letter was addressed to me with a date and time and address of where I needed to go for my appointment inside.

I didn’t know anything about the service which makes it intimidating but I hoped I could get help from them to make me feel better. My head is still spinning with questions, like, what is the person called that I am going to see? Will they understand what I’m going through? I don’t know anything about them. It’s making me feel anxious.

What about if someone sees me walking into the building that I know from college, will they judge me? If only the service had called me or sent a text explaining who I was going to see and given me a way to get in touch with them to ask them what treatment they could offer me.

It would be even better if they could meet me outside of the mental health service building in a space I felt comfortable going to. Help us help others to no longer feel STUCK IN AN ‘OLE.

Picture This: involve young people in

service design and evaluation

Am I not the expert in my own experience?

Name: Jack

Gender: Male

Age: 16

Sexuality: Heterosexual

I guess my family can be a

bit complicated sometimes.

My dad lives in Thailand so

me and my little brother,

who is 3, live with my mum.

Mum has to work a lot so it’s

up to me to look after my

brother most of the time.

I don’t hang out with my friends as much as I used to because I don’t go to school any more. I didn’t like it anyway. After school finished I spent a lot of time at home with my brother. I started to feel different and didn’t know why. Then I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I wanted to get help.

I was referred to counselling but the counsellor didn’t really get me and that made me frustrated. I didn’t think it was helpful so I stopped going.

But then I got involved with what’s called the Service User Involvement Group that the counselling service ran once a month. It’s where every- one who has had counselling can talk about what it was like and things they’d like to be different. It was only once a month so I managed to make it to every session and still look after my brother.

The group made me feel like I had a voice that was being taken seriously and after a while I even started co-chairing the meetings.

Together the Service User Involvement Group made a young person friendly waiting room with young volunteers from the local college so that it seemed less clinical and more open and approachable for other young people like me. I was able to change counsellor with the same service and now I’ve built a great relationship with them. The counsellor looked at using different therapies to the ones I’d tried before and that made me feel better.

It really helped me get better when I realized that I could be a part of something that changed things for the better. PICTURE THIS …all you have to do is ask and involve us!

Young people showed a desire to be involved in shaping the

services and support they received, coming up with

many wonderful ideas in relation to service design

throughout the consultations. Young people are the experts

in their own experiences and in the services and support

they would like to receive and it is recommended that there

be opportunities for young people to influence service

design at all levels to ensure that services best meet the

needs of the young people using them.

This could include involving young people in the

recruitment of staff, in the design of new services, and in

evaluating and reviewing services. Young people said they

wanted to be able to have a choice in the interventions they

received and wanted to have more of a range of services

and support available to them. It is recommended that

commissioners and services work with young people to

develop a range of interventions to suit individual needs,

based on the views of young people.

The majority of the young people we spoke to said they

would go to friends, family, youth workers, or school or

college for support. It is therefore recommended that there

be more training and support in place for these workers so

that they can feel confident to support young people around

their mental health. This could include a training offer for

youth workers and schools staff, as well as more awareness

aimed at parents around engaging their children in

conversations around mental health. As friends were an

often named source of support we would recommend

working with young people around ‘how you could support a

friend’ to enable them to feel confident in having

conversations around mental health and supporting their

friends to get the right support.

Keep it Real: support young people to

manage stress and pressure

How would you handle the pressure?

Name: Marie

Gender: female

Age: 16

Sexuality: I don’t like labels

I have only just turned 16.

I get a lot of pressure from

my parents to do well in my

exams this year.

Both my parents are doctors and they’ve always wanted me to be a GP too. My mum just had a baby too so I now have a sister and I’m not an only child anymore. I’m doing okay at school but I’ve had to work so hard on my revision and homework and I’m not sure I can keep it up.

I used to really like school but now all I can think about is how I have to do well in my exams.

I used to play football for my local team but stopped going to the training and kick-abouts because I just had too much work to do. I know the team really want me to go back and play but I just can’t fit everything

in.

I worry that I’m not getting as much exercise now though. I feel like I need to look a certain way, like my friends who seem perfect. I think they think I’m not pretty enough to hang out with them.

That’s why I stopped eating regularly and my parents referred me to an eating disorder service, but I know they are worried that getting help in the medical sector will affect my future job prospects and maybe be a barrier to me becoming a doctor.

I think it sounds like I may have low self-esteem and anxiety. I need more emotional support from my parents but since they had the baby I know they’re really busy and I feel like they don’t have time for me as much.

So much stress and pressure is building up and all I want is to learn how to get support, know who might be able to help me and look after my own mental health without feeling like I’m doing the wrong thing. If only we could all build awareness around services, support and self-help coping strategies and mechanisms to KEEP IT REAL with young people who are struggling with school and peer pressure.

Have you got time for me?

Take Time: build relationships with young

people

Name: Jade

Gender: Non-binary

Age: 17

Sexuality: I like what I like

I feel like because I am

non-binary, acceptance of

my identity has created a lot

of stigma amongst my

family, and the village in

which I live.

No one seems to understand being non binary and I feel pushed away from a community I wish supported me. I spoke to my GP as I was feeling displaced from society and everyone around me. The GP was okay I guess, they referred me to a mental health service but it didn’t work for me because the worker had a spiritual approach - it may work for some but not for me.

I then got referred to the college

counsellor, in my first session I was told it was one of 5 more sessions I would have with them and my homework was to think of something that makes me smile. Some days I

couldn’t think of anything. After my 6 sessions were up I was in no better place and was referred to the adult mental health team. In my first ap- pointment I was told I was too young for the service, yet again I was reminded how displaced I felt, not only within the community but also within services and accessing sup- port.

I was told that the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service may better meet my needs. This time, in my first session I asked how many sessions I would have with them. The worker was really cool and kind and answered by asking me how long a piece of string was. This straight away made me feel at ease and made me smile. I smiled because I felt welcomed and felt able to open up. I was also sign- posted to the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) forum which opened me up to a communi- ty of likeminded people and addi- tional support.

For a long time I felt I didn’t fit. I began to feel more accepted and a sense of belonging with support from my counselor. TAKE TIME to build relationships with us or to get the right support package, not limited time in a certain number of sessions.

Relationships came out as a really important factor in young

people feeling comfortable to be able to speak out about

their mental health, as well as in how well they engaged

with services. Young people said they did not want to have

to keep repeating their story, but would instead like to build

up a relationship with a worker who could support them

consistently over a period of time. They said they wanted to

have access to a range of interventions to support their

wellbeing, including more informal interventions, and for

services to be flexible in meeting their needs.

It can be very difficult to navigate services and support,

particularly when you are experiencing mental ill health. In

addition to ensuring young people know about where to go

to for support, and what their rights are, we need to

ensure that young people are at the centre of services and

are able to receive timely and appropriate support. Waiting

lists came up several times throughout the consultation as

a barrier for young people, and they said they would like to

get help early on to prevent their mental health from getting

worse before it can get better. Young people said they

wanted to have services available to them 24/7 and wanted

to see more online support for young people. They

wanted the spaces they went to, to feel ‘less clinical’ and

more ‘young person friendly’.