EAST ENGLAND

• Regional worker Kevin, attended a meeting of Training Programme Directors who are responsible for delivering and assessing the training for Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists. Kevin presented the work the VIK’s have done to date and highighted their key recommendation that the views of children and young people should be used in assessing the trainees against the outcomes of the curriculum.

• VIR, VIK and Kevin met with the clinical lecturer of the clincial psychology doctorate course at the University of Hertfordshire to discuss increasing the voice of children and young people in the delviery of the course. This could include

1.  Children and young people possibly delivering an aspect of the course, i.e. on participation;

2.  Children and young people observing course participants in clinical simulations;

3.  Children and young people helping to create a case study for use by the course participants.

• Kevin facilitated a ½ day workshop for members of the Youth Council at Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust. The workshop focused on discussing issues including ground rules and terms of reference for the Council, areas of action and prioritising the work ahead. The outcomes of the 2 workshops will be presented to the Trust’s Chief Executive.

• Kevin attended the launch of the new waiting area for the Central Norfolk Early Intervention in Psychosis Team. The need for this change was identified by young people following a ‘You’re Welcome’ assessment conducted by young service users.

EAST MIDLANDS

• Rose has been consulting with VIR in the Leicester area on the future services that Leicester CAMHS can offer to young people and what they should look like. Young people feedback directly to the CAMHS commissioners and the regional worker updated the CAMHS partnership board and the IAPT steering group on young people’s views and participation priorities.

LONDON

• Regional worker Erin, featured on Radio 1′s Newsbeat programme talking about the problems of transitions between CAMHS and AMHS.

• Held State of Mind planning meeting at City Hall with VIK and the Peer Outreach Team

• Erin & one VIK from London ran participation training for Greenwich CAMHS.

‘Erin’s training was an excellent mixture of information, exercises, seriousness and fun – making it an enjoyable day from which I will take lots of ideas’ - Greenwich CAMHS

‘Erin was very knowledgeable and approachable – a very engaging presenter’ - Greenwich CAMHS

NORTH EAST

• One VIK from the North East took part in their frist ever newspaper interview with The Sun!

• The North East Youth Board is planning two exciting projects, one will be an anti stigma project based around drama and the other will be a web resource for young people.

• Yvonne & VIK/VIR held stalls at 2 events attended by senior members of the NTW Trust to further the cause of participation.

 SOUTH EAST

Regional worker Daryl, worked closely with Hampshire CAMHS this month, providing participation training to In-patient staff, running a venue consultation and training young people from Basingstoke in recruitment.

SOUTH WEST

• Matt met with 2 young people from the Mentality group to talk about expectations and support needed for them to get involved in the steer of the Informed Choice project.  Matt will have regular meetings with the young people to provide them with the necessary skills to fully participate in the project.

• Participation has been mapped across Dorset CAMHS and a plan for moving forward has been devleopled.  There are now three participation groups running across the partnership and they are involved in several aspects of service development including recruitment and information design.

• Met with Somerset young people friendly services steering group developed plans for training young people to be involved in assessing CAMH services in Somerset.

WEST MIDLANDS

• West Midlands regional worker, Marcia, supported a group of 6 young people from Derbyshire IAPT to deliver a presentation about the values of participation within service delivery and design.

• Marcia has also been working at a local school, gathering student views and discussing their experiences, of mental health.  Year7-9 students  worked with a local poet who using some of his experiences of mental ill health to inspire and motivate them to write about issues that they find hard discussing.

• Young people from Worcester identified waiting times for CAMHS appointments as an issue that required change. In May 2011 nearly a quarter of new referrals to the service had to wait longer than 18 weeks for a first appointment. In April 2012 no cases waited longer than 18 weeks to be seen and the average waiting time continues to reduce.

“One key issue that was identified from the consultation was the need to reduce waiting times for appointments. This information has been used to help to improve services offered by CAMHS, who have recently been praised for making significant changes to the service.  In particular, waiting times have reduced since May 2011 when nearly a quarter of new referrals to the service had to wait longer than 18 weeks for a first appointment.  The latest figures show that in April 2012 no cases waited longer than 18 weeks to be seen and the average waiting time continues to reduce”.   Angela Kirton Commissioning Manger CAMHS Worcestershire

YORKSHIRE & HUMBER

• In early June, three young women from Getaway Girls were trained and supported to form a recruitment and selection panel for the national Children and Young People’s IAPT in order to help recruite new collaboratives to the project.

“Choosing new collaboratives to deliver Children and Young People’s IAPT is one of the most important tasks for the project. The success of the project depends on identifying sites with the  vision and capacity to deliver.  YoungMinds coordinated our work with young people for the  second year of national selection. YoungMinds worked again with  the young people from the Getaway Girls Project , building on what they had created last year to deliver a panel of astonishingly able young people.  What impressed the professionals panel was the succinct and focussed insight from the young peoples panel. Nothing escaped them, and their insight clarified our own experience. YoungMinds relationship with partners and leadership  enabled us yet again to identify new sites with high levels of confidence in the sites’ability to deliver the kind of services which are responsive to and shaped by their clients.”- Kathryn Pugh, Children and Young People’s IAPT Project Manager, Department of Health

See http://youtu.be/byY7hek83AY  for more information about this process

• Liz has also been working with Barnsley & Leeds CAMHS to support their participation strategies.

 VIK PROJECT TIMELINE