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NCB in Northern Ireland worked in partnership with organisations across the four nations to put the voices of young people at the centre of mental health services and created a youth-led charter for their design and delivery.
In 2019, the National Children’s Bureau in Northern Ireland was invited to work in partnership with Youth Access, Scottish Youth Parliament, SAMH (Scottish Association for Mental Health), ProMo Cymru and Hafal to put the voices of young people at the centre of mental health service design and delivery all across the UK. The programme was funded by The National Lottery Community Fund.
It was an easy offer to accept! The statistics on youth mental health in Northern Ireland are staggering and there’s arguably never been a greater need for service improvement.
NCB agreed to establish the project in Northern Ireland, and we formed both a young people's steering group and a professionals' steering group to help guide the development of a Youth-Led Mental Health Charter for Services.
An overview of the project is illustrated below (you can download this as a PDF via the link at the bottom of the page):
In 2020, we spent a strange and sometimes surreal year thinking, talking, planning and designing this Youth-Led Charter for Mental Health Services in Northern Ireland.
We reached out to other young people to ask what they needed and wanted from services and an unbelievable 1,764 responded to our survey. Another 151 took part in focus groups to share their stories, experiences and hopes with us.
Their charter sets out the principles that should underpin high-quality mental health services. The call to action in Northern Ireland complimented work taking place in the other nations of the UK - find out about their work on the national Our Minds Our Future website.
In September 2021, NCB hosted an online youth-led event, which was co-designed and co-facilitated by young people with lived experience of mental ill health and those interested in improving mental health services for young people in Northern Ireland. A summary report of the event can be seen here or downloaded at the bottom of this page.
In 2022, we worked with key stakeholders to learn more about what mental health services in Northern Ireland looked like and shared our youth-led charter.
In 2023, we took the charter to 55 different children and young people to find out which asks in the charter were most important to them and why. The findings from these focus groups are summarised below (you can download a PDF of this image via the link at the bottom of the page).
In addition, these 55 children and young people created a list of key indicators for professionals to use in determining 'what good looks like' for mental health services. Professionals are encouraged to download the 'RAG Spreadsheet' below to assess their practices against these key indicators, ranking them as red, amber or green based on what young people have shared with us.
In 2024, NCB co-designed an event with young people to bring professionals and stakeholders together to share their findings and start conversations about how the project’s impact can be sustained and embedded. A summary of the event is captured below (again, this is downloadable via the link at the bottom of the page).
Continuing the conversation
Our young people are passionate about continuing the conversation and sharing their work with professionals. We would like to invite you to share our charter, graphics and use our spreadsheet to review and improve mental health services for children and young people across your work.
Resources for download
RAG spreadsheet for professionals