What young people think about mental health support in Enfield

Through our ongoing engagement and outreach programme, we received feedback about the quality of children and young people’s mental health services. Aware of the issues being raised nationally and locally, we established a project to understand and review the quality of mental health and support services for young people.

In June 2015, Healthwatch England was invited to give evidence to the Youth Select Committee Inquiry into young people’s mental health. Healthwatch England presented the insight and evidence from 77 local Healthwatch, and emphasised the need to promote resilience and early intervention and to tackle stigma; to improve access, referrals and transitions; and to improve staff attitudes and meaningful engagement.

To understand the local experience, we liaised with a range of local young people, parents, carers and youth and community workers to understand the local situation.

Our objectives were:

• to consult with young people, parents and youth services practitioners to listen to and evaluate their awareness, perception and experiences of mental health services
• to produce a report, with recommendations as appropriate to be presented to Enfield Joint Commissioning Board, Enfield Health and Wellbeing Board, and service providers for their responses.