An Invitation to Think: An Integrated System of Care
Meg Platt shares her reflections on our recent event An Invitation to Think: partnerships, relationships and young people’s voice.
The Fullscope event was an invitation to reflect on how our current approaches impact children and young people and to consider how we can improve as system partners in meeting children and young people’s mental health needs. There were lots of opportunities to explore how we could more meaningfully include the voices of children and young people in the mental health system given that their involvement and influence can lead to better ideas and solutions. I heard many colleagues share that they felt they listened to children and young people through feedback but recognised we could all do more to involve them as leaders in designing and developing the support they can access.
During the integrated care workshop, colleagues from the YOUnited partnership shared the experiences of two young people — one with a positive encounter and another with a more challenging experience - when referred to YOUnited for support. They discussed what it felt like for the young person in each scenario and the differences in experiences between professionals working in a charity and healthcare settings.
This session was powerful and insightful, offering us the opportunity to reflect on the assumptions we may make about each other’s roles and how it might feel for each of us. As a voluntary sector partner, I haven’t always been aware of the tensions that health partners may experience, and vice versa. For colleagues observing the session, it was also a chance to gain fresh insights.
The discussion that followed focused on working together across the mental health ecosystem, and the importance of building trust and strong relationships among partners who work in different ways and with different cultures and values. We also discussed the importance of relationships when working with children, young people, and their families and the importance of funding which enables the time needed to provide this approach. We reflected on the importance of finding ways to collaborate to provide the best support and help-seeking experience for children, young people, and their families. Within YOUnited, we have developed a multi-disciplinary approach, collaborating across the partnership and bringing together our different perspectives and disciplines to determine the best ways to support a child or young person. This includes health partners and voluntary sector partners, but we also recognised the importance of involving education, local authority CYP colleagues, and adult service partners and there was consensus in the workshop about the need to continue to do more to work collaboratively across this wider system of partners.
Since the workshop, a Fullscope colleague suggested that YOUnited could go further by becoming inter-disciplinary rather than multi-disciplinary—integrating and synthesizing knowledge across disciplines to create new ways of doing things. Could this help us be innovative and effective in supporting children and young people? There is more thinking to be done.
We look forward to continuing this journey thinking together with partners and with children and young people as leaders in the further design and development of YOUnited.
If you’d like to join the next event, An Invitation to Think: Act 1, get in touch by emailing info@fullscopecollaboration.org.uk
Written in conjunction with our guest, Meg Platt. Meg is Deputy Chief Executive at Centre 33.