Listen Up - Social Welfare Portal

listenup!30 | Chapter 4The partner sites’experience of what worksYoung people should not bepassive recipients of services butshould be actively involved inchoosing the support that bestsuits them, and how it is deliveredand developed. Services workingin this way will help to build trustand empower young people.This foundation of involvement andparticipation can be developedto provide other opportunitiesfor young people to participatein the way the service is operatedon an organisational level, fromgiving advice on the physicalenvironment, to being involvedin the recruitment of service staff,including the chief executive.Partner sites, positive practice group (PPG), 2006In February 2006, a two-day facilitated workshopwas held with the eight partner sites to explore andshare knowledge of what did and did not work indelivering services for young people aged 16–25who were experiencing mental health and emotionalproblems. The individual services had developedtheir own approaches based on what worked bestfor them, and the workshop revealed that theseapproaches had a number of key elements incommon. This led to the development of a sharedstatement (see left) and a set of 16 core principles– what works well for all the organisations.Not all of these principles will apply to everyservice that is being provided for young peopleexperiencing mental health or emotional problems.For example, self-referral may not be appropriatefor some specialist services, particularly those in thestatutory sector. However, this statement and setof principles are a starting point for both setting upnew services and developing existing ones.The rest of this report is divided into sections whichencompass the main themes of these sharedprinciples, and of what young people said theywanted from services (see chapter 3 and appendix 1)– the provision of a choice-based, accessible servicewhich supports young people in a holistic waythrough all stages of their need and which involvesthem in service development.Shared Core Principles01 The organisation should make their servicereadily available and accessible by offeringimmediate support, different paths for referralincluding self-referral, and providing a range ofways that young people can contact the service(text messaging, e-mail, telephone, face to face).02 Where possible, services should be providedwithin the community, helping to reducestigma and improve access.