A Resource Made By Us, For Us: Co-Creating a Wellbeing Toolkit
Members of the Help You, Help Them co-creation team at the launch event
Over the past year, Fullscope has been working alongside a group of young people to create an online resource, Help You, Help Them. Read about the project, what we did, and what we’ve learned.
Background
In 2022, Fullscope led a workshop with members of Our Voices, discussing where young people go to for support and guidance around mental health. Through those conversations, we heard that young people quite often turn to each other, and that they felt they needed more guidance on how to best support each other, and look after themselves. Their friends were going to them for help, but they didn’t always know how or feel confident when supporting.
Our Voices is overseen by a steering group of experts by experience, who helped to develop these conversations into the idea of an online toolkit and a proposal. With funding secured from Cambridgeshire Public Health, we recruited 12 young people aged 14 – 19 years from across Cambridgeshire, some of whom were part of that original workshop, and got to work.
The process of co-creation
In line with Fullscope’s co-production principles, we wanted to ensure that this resource was created by young people, for young people.
At Fullscope, we think it’s vital that power is shared between participants and facilitators when co-producing. Part of this is ensuring that everyone starts with the same information, so we put together research, data and information about the aims of the project to share with young people. We also ensured that decisions were made between everyone: the young people and facilitators in the workshops, with the steering group providing guidance throughout, working closely with our commissioner at Public Health.
Once on board, we spent time initially getting to know the young people, building relationships between us and them, before moving into structured workshops, which took place online and in person. With a diversity of needs and personalities across the group, all young people were given choices about how they wanted to take part. They could attend online meetings with or without cameras on and could type rather than speak if they preferred. There was also no obligation for them to attend all the in-person meetings, they could still be part of the project are share their views in other ways.
During workshops and online sessions with the young people, all decisions such as name, format, general content, design, layout, feel, illustrations and more were made by the young people involved, with facilitator Jasmin liaising with the illustrators and graphic designers to get everything right and to achieve the vision of the young people.
We were fortunate to have mental health expert Michelle Lay as part of the team, working alongside Fullscope’s Programme Support Jasmin Adams and the young people. As a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, with experience of co-producing resources with young people, Michelle provided clinical oversight on content and was there to discuss ideas with the young people as they happened in the room, giving expert guidance on language and approaches to supporting mental health. Michelle also provided practical support, keeping everyone safe and well during what were, for some, at times, difficult conversations.
© Fullscope 2024
What the young people have said about the project
We asked the young people what they thought about the co-production process as well as the project as a whole:
“Before I wasn't very confident in sharing my view or opinions. But now, after working with a lovely group of people it has made me feel loads more confident.”
“Working with the group we all shared our ideas, and they were all taken on board, whether re-worded or not. We were definitely listened to.”
“It was the best experience and opportunity I've had. I think I was able to express myself fully. The professionals and young people are all really nice and I am very happy I had a chance to meet them all.”
“I felt like we were all kept very involved throughout the whole process, whether that was through things like all the online questions/polls or meeting up in person.”
“I feel the power was definitely more in the young people, which is where I think it needed to be, as it was a resource made by us, for us.”
© Fullscope 2024
Key learnings and recommendations
Young people don’t shy away from talking about hard topics, as professionals we should utilise this and have those conversations with them. They have great ideas on how we as professionals can support them.
Young people know a lot, they just need some guidance and support to put what they know into practice. They also know what they want resources for them to look like, we should make sure we are asking them what they want when designing.
The process of co-production isn’t just about working on something together, it’s also about building relationships between those involved, by ensuring we spend time nurturing those relationships we enable young people to build on their confidence when involved in activities.
There will be some messy moments in co-production where it’s not clear where the project is going: trust the process and engage your steering group in discussions about the direction of the work. Things may not end up where you expect, but that is part of the joy (and challenge!) of co-production.
Jasmin, Programme Support at Fullscope:
Facilitating this project has given me invaluable understanding of how crucial it is to include young people in the designing of resources for them. They are experts by experience, and we should be including them in these conversations. Since the website has gone live, I have reflected on what it might have looked like if we didn’t create it with young people. I am not sure what a group of professionals may have designed, but I don’t believe it would have the same feel and impact as it does now.
I have also learnt that there are times when I, as the facilitator needed to lead the group, but there are also plenty of times when I needed to take a step back and let them lead, work things out for themselves, and see where it goes. I am excited about future possibilities of co-production with young people to empower them to have their voices heard.