Well-Being Map
Young people continually tell us that they don’t know how to get help for their Mental Health. They don’t know what services exist, where the yare located or what they offer. Young people wanted to change that! Wandsworth Youth Council and the Wandsworth Children in Care Council designed a Well-Being map to do just that.
BACKGROUND
In 2015, Participation People supported the Wandsworth Youth Council to deliver the Youth Momentum 2 conference. Over 100 young people came together to discuss key issues in their borough. Mental Health was one of them. Young people were concerned that they didn’t know what services existed to support them. Most hadn’t even heard about the Counsellor in their school. We presented this issue to the Wandsworth CCG. They allocated some funding and asked us to deliver a project to work with young people to design a map of all Mental Health service in Wandsworth.
THE PROBLEMS
The big ones were: What services existed to support young people? Where were these services were located? Services were poorly advertised Lack of clarity on what support services could offer and how young people could access it Parents/carers lack of knowledge to be able support young people Professionals unable to signpost young people onto services Keeping a list of services updated and current Service information being in different places, inaccessible and in language young people don’t understand Jargon – young people didn’t understand what Tiers were
THE SOLUTIONS
Recruited a group of young people from the Wandsworth Youth Council and Wandsworth Children in Care Council to be our young designers Contacted all services and asked them to complete an online form to tell us about what support they offered Young people decided what information they would like to see on a Well-Being map and wrote the text for it so it was easy to understand. We worked with young people to create youth-friendly descriptions of Tier 1,2 and 3 Young people worked with our designer to create A young people friendly map that was inclusive and made Mental Health seem less scary! We worked with Wandsworth CCG to ensure that this map was both made accessible online in digital format and printed too.
More, please…
Over 4 months, our Young Designers met with our Designer to create the Well-Being map. We worked with and contacted services to get information from them about what support they offered young people. They created the ideas for the graphics, colours and layout for the map. They wanted it to be inclusive, to make it clear EVERYONE had Mental Health and that EVERYONE was on a Well-Being journey. They also created a youth-friendly description of the different Tiers of support. They jargon busted the descriptions of the services and make it into text young people would understand!
What’s next?
The Wandsworth CCG have professionally printed the Well-Being Map. They have printed 5,000 copies. Every school in Wandsworth has received 300 copies and it has been sent to GP’s, libraries and children’s centres to name a few locations. The CCG has agreed to keep the map updated. Our designer ensured that the design was editable so that Wandsworth CCG can ensure that it has the most updated information about services. It will also mean the design is used for years to come! We have received lots of fantastic feedback about the map and other boroughs would like our help to create one!
