Young commissioners programme
Nina Jacobs
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Group of young people in Newcastle and Gateshead recruited to help commission child mental health services.
- Young commissioners scrutinise bids to run counselling services and advise on developing online tools
- The initiative has pushed children's mental health up the local agenda
ACTION
Internal reviews of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in Newcastle and Gateshead found them to be good yet not responsive enough to the needs of young people and their families.
When local health and social care chiefs began the process of recommissioning services, they realised that young service users needed to play a central role if provision was to better meet their needs.
To address this, Newcastle and Gateshead councils and the area's clinical commissioning group (CCG) launched in 2015 its Young Commissioners programme, using funding from a £75,000 grant from NHS England.
Gateshead-based Youth Focus North East won the contract that had been put out to tender to deliver the Young Commissioners programme. The charity specialises in bringing together young people and the organisations that support them.
A group of 14 local young people, aged 15 to 18, were recruited to work with council and CCG staff to redesign parts of the tiers 2 and 3 CAMHS commissioning process.
During the tendering process for tier 2 counselling services, the young commissioners sat on the panel that scrutinised bids.
"They influenced which provider would deliver counselling services," says Helen Robinson, a public health specialist at Newcastle City Council who worked with the group.
"They had a big say on who the contract was awarded to and that's an ongoing process because those contracts are still in place."
In addition, the programme initiated work on improving access to services and trialling apps that allow young people to engage with mental health services without having to speak to a professional in person.
Robinson says the group was asked to think about what information would be available if they were looking for mental health services online and what content might be used on a website to signpost young people for support.
This work contributed to the development of Thrive, a new service model that offers a single point of access into the mental health system.
Events and meetings were held at weekends and in the evenings to make them convenient for young people. Robinson says these meetings helped the young commissioners understand how the commissioning process worked and explain jargon used by the CCG and councils.
"We were able to build a relationship with the young people because we really wanted it to be about collaboration and not just a tick box exercise," says Robinson.
Professionals also took the time to explain to the group about national service specifications for CAMHS to defuse frustration among the young commissioners about how local provision needed to comply with this.
Although NHS England funding for the Young Commissioners programme officially ended in March, the CCG plans to make co-production a feature of future work.
IMPACT
Robinson says one of the young commissioners' biggest achievements was ensuring that emotional health and wellbeing for young people is a high-priority issue.
"Organisations like the Youth Council in Newcastle have chosen mental health as their number one priority," she says. "If we hadn't been doing some of this work over the last few years it would have been much harder."
In terms of the tier 2 counselling contract awarded, the young commissioners were instrumental in shaping the service so it effectively communicated and engaged with children, young people and their families.
They flagged up the need for age-appropriate methods of engagement and communication and for safeguarding concerns around the use of mobiles to be addressed.
Robinson believes the long-term impact of the programme has definitively changed the way commissioners think about how services are delivered.
"In the past it was done without much thought of involving service users but now I think in how we commission services it's absolutely crucial to listen to the young person's voice, what it is they are saying and how we can involve them."