Thriving - improving young people's mental health

Report - 18 May 2015

Children and young people want mental health support that is meaningful and relevant to them says a new report published by Healthwatch Cambridgeshire.

We are publishing Thriving, our report into children and young people's mental health, to coincide with Mental Health Awareness week 16 - 22 May.

We wrote Thriving to help make sure children and young people are listened to by the people making decisions about mental health services for them. The report is already helping to inform the redesign of local mental health services.

Why we wrote the report

We were asked to do this work to help the Emotional Health and Wellbeing Board for Children and Young People redesign mental health services for children and young people. They are developing a new way of providing mental health and wellbeing support. The Board includes Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council. 
We spoke to four local groups of children and young people aged 8 to 20 years, including some young carers. They told us they wanted
 
  • information provided using words and images that are meaningful to them
  • stories of how other children and young people have managed different mental health problems
  • help to develop resilience; how to ‘bounce back’ after a difficult time.

The Thriving report undertaken by Healthwatch Cambridgeshire is a good demonstration of how locally we are engaging with children and young people and the information gathered is an excellent resource to inform our work locally in developing emotional health and wellbeing services for children and young people.

Wendi Ogle-Welbourn, Corporate Director: People and Communities, Peterborough City Council, Chair of the Emotional Health and Wellbeing Board for Children and Young People.

Thriving went to the Emotional Health and Wellbeing Board meeting on 4th May 2016. At this meeting the Board said that the learning points will be incorporated into their plans for redesigning services.

Downloads

Read Thriving here
Download (PDF 1.53 MB)

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