Case Example
“It really feels like youth participation has taken off in the city. Whereas before I’d hear things like ‘young people don’t really know about mental health’, now that has changed. Young people have demonstrated that they can be involved. That has made a massive change. The other strategic work we have been doing is ‘drip, drip, drip’, and this will hopefully pay dividends in the future, but STAMP’s work in getting participation more accepted has been a great thing.”
Young Evaluators, Right Here Sheffield
STAMP (Support, Think, Act, Motivate, Participate) is a group of young people aged 14–25 who are working to improve the mental health and emotional wellbeing of young people across Sheffield. STAMP has been working closely with CAMHS (Children’s and Adult Mental Health Services) within the city to look at how the service can better meet the needs of children and young people.
To support this work, STAMP recruited young people to act as Young Evaluators. Young people received interactive training around service evaluation, before breaking down the standards and coming up with their own methods to assess CAMHS. This included: interviewing staff, children and young people, and parents and carers; ‘mental health orienteering’; site visits; and the collection and review of CAMHS information. Following the evaluation, STAMP collated its findings into a report with key recommendations that the group is now helping CAMHS to implement.