"My lived experience empowers me"

This month marks the anniversary of Anna Freud’s first Participation Strategy. The strategy formally outlined our commitment to ensuring that the experiences of young people, and parents and carers, are embedded across our work and help to improve mental services for children, young people and families.

One of the ways we involve young people in particular is through our Young Champions group. Members of these groups are offered opportunities to meaningfully contribute to improving mental health focused projects and services.

Young Champions are able to meet like-minded people, develop skills for the future and take part in fun experiences while having access to training and support. They get involved in activities such as:

• co-designing new services, resources and projects at Anna Freud

• co-facilitating workshops and training

• taking part in public speaking opportunities through the media or at events

• influencing clinical services and policy at a local and national level.

In this blog we hear from Naz, one of our Young Champions who has worked on numerous projects and initiatives with us over a number of years. In her own words she tells us how this experience has empowered her, the impact she feels she’s having and her hopes for the future of participation at Anna Freud.

A bit about me

“I started working closely with Anna Freud at the age of 17, sharing my lived experience to help a steering group improve my local mental health services. Since then, I’ve gone on to do a degree in Psychology. One day I aspire to be an Art Psychotherapist.

“I also volunteer with Anna Freud as a Young Champion. This means I am part of team who work with the organisation to ensure that our experiences of mental health and as young people can help shape their work.

Finding the voice within

“I joined my first participation project via my local CAMHS when I was 16, (taking part in a service-user-led debate about young people’s mental health), and immediately wanted to continue the journey. This was when I was first introduced to the work of Anna Freud and the Young Champion’s programme. Over the years, I have been involved in different participation opportunities, including co-designing services, consultations, public speaking, and co-facilitating training. It has helped me to feel as if my voice mattered. I believe all young people with lived experience have a story to share and can help shift the perspective of youth mental health, they just need help finding that voice within them.

Passionate about making a difference

“When I first became a Young Champion, I felt nervous about sharing my experience with a new group of people. Fortunately, participation work has helped me get more and more comfortable speaking about my mental health and challenging the stigma; my lived experience is one that empowers me and fuels me to help make change. My nerves were quickly put at ease, as the Young Champions are an incredible group of young people who are kind, empathetic, and passionate about making a genuine difference in how everyone sees mental health.

My favourite participation experience

“One of my favourite pieces of participation work was having co-written the forward for our Thinking Differently manifesto. The manifesto has helped bring awareness to five key areas for change in young people’s mental and identifies what steps need to be taken. I feel strongly about what the manifesto plans to achieve and commend the well-informed approach to young people’s mental health, highlighting multiple calls for policy changes and backed by research.

Changes can start with a conversation

“Being a young champion has been an exciting and thought-provoking experience that has allowed me to expand my knowledge of participation work and co-production, as well as step out of my comfort zone. It’s not easy to draw on lived experience and overcome the stigma associated with mental health, but even the smallest of changes can start with a conversation, and the role of Young Champion has helped me use my mental health journey to make positive change.

Giving our voices due weight

“For me being a Young Champion is about being supported and taken seriously to have our voices heard and due weight given to what we have to say, this really levels the playing field in terms of power, because often young people don’t feel they have much of that. Having a voice is an important factor of the Lundy Model, the participation framework Anna Freud uses.

It’s a useful tool that you can learn more about here.

Looking ahead

“I hope that my contributions, like my involvement in the manifesto development, will continue to be a source for understanding young people’s mental health. This resource in particular encourages policy makers and those that deliver services towards much needed change in mental health care.

“I also hope going forward, Anna Freud continues to allow for meaningful participation of young people and that other organisations are able to learn from this work so that our voice remains a key part of important decision-making processes across the sector.”

- Naz, aged 24

Learn about our Participation Strategy

In our Participation Strategy, you can read about how and why we amplify the voices of young people like Naz (as well as parents and carers) to achieve our goals. We hope by sharing our learnings and by hearing about your own we can tackle the important questions together and boost participation practices across the sector.

If you are a young person who has experienced mental health difficulties and would like to join our Young Champions network we’d like to hear from you.

Read more about our Young Champions