Our impact - Consulting Youth Advisors (CYA)

Understanding confidentiality and information-sharing

Consulting Youth Advisors (CYA) members shared that it can be confusing for young people to understand what happens to the information they share with Mindworks services and that they often had to re-tell their story many times when working with different professionals, which could be frustrating and sometimes upsetting.

Mindworks held three workshops for young people aged 13-25 to share their feedback and help shape a young person version of the Mindworks privacy notice! The young person friendly privacy notice is available on the Mindworks website: Your information at Mindworks :: Mindworks Surrey. A leaflet and animated video are also being created so young people have the information available in different formats.

Visual map of Mindworks

Finding your way around mental health services just got easier.

CYA members told us that understanding mental health support in Surrey can be confusing. We passed that feedback on to Mindworks and they created a visual map to show what services are available and how to access them.

CYA members helped design the map to make sure it’s clear and useful. They suggested adding QR codes so you can quickly find out more about each service if you want to.

Check out the visual map of Mindworks on their website: Mindworks Visual Map

Emerald Place Clinic

In 2022, CYA members got the chance to help design Emerald Place Clinic – a mental health inpatient unit for young people in Surrey.

They shared ideas on how to make the space feel welcoming, inclusive, and supportive – from the layout and décor to choosing the name (a CYA member came up with Emerald Place!).

Once Emerald Place was built, CYA members helped interview staff and even designed and delivered training to help professionals understand what it’s really like to be a young person with mental health needs.

Want to hear more? Check out this amazing blog post written by one of the young people who was part of the project.


Did you find this information helpful?

Rating Did you find the information helpful?

We aren't able to reply to individual comments, so please don't include any personal details.