Young people give their thoughts on the day!

In roving reporter style, I caught up with some of the young people to find out how the day had gone...

Kat
"We need to see the actions because they'll speak louder than words."

Michelle
"It definitely feels like it can make a difference, more than just talking and seeing nothing happen. It actually feels like we've made a difference."

Naomi
"At the end of the day we're the ones who receive this therapy. So it's really important we're involved."

George
"They normally say we take away everything from the meetings and you think, 'yeah do you?'  But today they really did listen."

 

 

feedback on the event

I just wanted to say a big thank you for today to you and everyone who helped organise the event.

It was my first contact with YoungMinds really and despite being really nervous everyone was friendly and I’ve gained a lot from the experience.

It’s the first time in my whole life I've met people who have experienced some of the things I have and it has made me realise that the way I was treated by services was their fault, not that I was a bad and worthless person as I have thought for years.

I have walked away feeling empowered and not alone for the first time in years. Thank you

Mental health is key to wellbeing

These graffiti posters show how things are going for young people taking part.

Green is for good, orange for OK and pink is for poor.

The charts cover all the big areas as part of Every Child Matters:

Being healthy

Staying safe

The Things I need (economic wellbeing)

Making a positive contribution

Learning and achieving

Good mental health won’t magically sort everything else out, but will add strength and resilience in managing other aspects of our lives

A little burst of inspiration!

The atmosphere here as i've already mentioned is so inspiring!

After reading some of our young people's comments about being just a "tick in a box" i wrote this, i'm not sure you can call it a poem but here i go anyway:

Human?

I’m an appointment time
A care plan
The paperwork you do when you go home
A file locked away in an office
A case study
A score on a diagnostic tool
A BMI: 16.1
A dosage: 40mg
An ICD reference number:

ICD10 ICD 307.1
296.3
300.02
300.03
307.41
43.1

How am i supposed to feel human?

An update from Kat

Hi everyone,


I should probably introduce myself quickly, my name is Kat and i am one of YoungMind’s VIK members, currently living in the East of England, struggling with long term mental health problems and constantly campaigning for better services for young people.


We’ve just had the morning session and can i just say it has been amazing. Lots of faces old and new and some really mind blowing thoughts and ideas being bounced around, the atmosphere here is incredible. Everyone is so pro-active and so passionate about the things we’re speaking about here today and it’s wonderful to be surrounded by so many like minded people.


I also wanted to note down a few of the things that have come up today that have really stood out for me personally:


*Young people in mental health services feel like they’re just “ticks in a box” which is so dehumanising!


*We are not listened to. Doctors and services often seem to have their own agenda..they already know what they’re going to diagnose us with or what medication they want us on and we don’t have a say in what happens to us-definitely not “No decision about us without us”!


*We’ve been told that because we have a mental health problem we shouldn’t aspire to achieving anything because we’ll never manage..sometimes it feels like they make the glass ceiling so low that we hit our head every time we try and even stand up and it’s not fair. We can and do accomplish amazing things and no one should ever tell you that you can’t.


*Communication is vital and right now a lot of the time it just isn’t happening. Services aren’t talking to young people and the services aren’t talking to each other either and everyone is losing out because of this.


*Young people are often not given appropriate treatment, we’re stuck on medication without psychological therapies or we’re given leaflets and told to come back in “an emergency”..but when we do we’re told we’re too ill


*Just because we’re young we’re not idiots or incapable of understanding what is going on, listen to us and treat us with some trust and respect-you will be rewarded. For treatment to really work you need a working two way relationship.

And of course so, so much more has been said but i will leave it at that for now!

Kat

A response to "Stuck in a hole"

One of our wonderful VIK's Gary has been following our progress today and has written this which i thought i would share with you all:

There's a man stuck in a hole in the middle of nowhere, screaming and begging for help. After a few hours a psychiatrist walks by, and says "I can give you some tablets to help alleviate the distress you're feeling." So the psychiatrist throws down some tablets.

 

A few hours later a psychologist walks by, and sees the difficult situation the man is in. He says "I can't do a lot, but I can offer you 5 minutes of CBT to talk through how your thinking is wrong for being distressed when you can't get out of a hole." So the psychologist does this therapy, and 5 minutes later goes on his way.

 

Finally, a peer support worker walks by just as the sun dips into twilight. Seeing the man is at his wits end, he jumps into the hole with him. "What the hell do you think you're doing- now we're both stuck!!" says the man.

 

The peer supporter replies "I've been down here myself- and I know there's a way out."

World premier of The Hole!

Alex, Si and Rachel our resident actors for the day premiered The Hole!

Patience, some friendly and not so friendly passerbys and 'John the Paramedic' find themselves thrown together when Patience falls down a large hole.  How do different people respond? And what's this Paramedic up to?

 


Using Forum Theatre, the actor then asked the young people in the audience to give suggestions / lines / thoughts / reflections / actions to perform and try to create the 'perfect scenario' for the character.