Youth Action Away Day for Changemakers

Empowering young people aged 16-25 to actively contribute to the ongoing dialogue and development of mental health support in England and Wales.

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The Youth Action Away Day for Changemakers was a collaboration between Youth Access and ProMo Cymru. This extension project aimed to give young people an opportunity to consider the next steps for the Our Minds Our Future Project, a five-year initiative that shaped mental health services for young people across the UK.

The challenge

The initial Our Minds Our Future project had made strides in shaping youth mental health services across the UK, but there was a recognised need to continue this momentum and ensure that young people’s voices remained central to the process.

Over the last five years, the context for young people has changed significantly with COVID-19, the cost of living crisis and more. We wanted to review the relevance of the asks within this new context. 

There was a need to reflect on the progress made, identify ongoing challenges, and ensure that future initiatives remained relevant and responsive to the evolving needs of young people.

Our approach

To address these challenges, Youth Access and ProMo Cymru designed an extension project that prioritised youth engagement and co-production.

The project began with targeted recruitment of six young people aged 16-25 from across England and Wales for this paid opportunity.

This was followed by three online planning sessions to build rapport, share knowledge, and collaboratively design the Youth Action Away Day. These sessions focused on key themes such as the importance of change-making, experiences in creating change, personal strengths, and skill development.

Our final online session before the Away Day served as a pre-departure briefing. Staff shared a residential pack and detailed agenda, ensuring everyone felt safe, supported, and fully informed about the upcoming activities.

The Youth Action Away Day, a residential event in Bristol, provided a platform for in-depth research, manifesto reviews, and creativity. Participants researched current mental health issues both in the UK and internationally, presented their findings, and collaboratively reflected on the manifestos in line with this new context.

We committed to using the key themes from the discussions to shape the government’s agenda, continue advocating for the manifesto recommendations, and develop visual resources to help aid understanding of the recommendations.

Finally, a debrief and evaluation session gathered feedback for continuous learning and improvement.

Outcomes

As part of the project, participants gained valuable research, collaboration, and presentation skills, while also expanding their professional networks. The project provided a platform for young people to build confidence, develop their abilities, and make a lasting impact on mental health support in England and Wales.

By fostering a collaborative and inclusive environment, the Youth Action Away Day for Changemakers successfully celebrated the achievements of the previous five years and laid the groundwork for continued progress in youth mental health services.

The Youth Action Away Day resulted in the development of two resources, which are innovative tools for understanding and improving mental health support for young people:

• Roll The Dice is a game designed to gain deeper insight into the complex and diverse experiences of young people. By rolling a dice to build a fictional young person’s life, players explore how different factors can shape outcomes, opportunities, and challenges. This activity is ideal for youth workers, educators, social care professionals, mental health workers, and others who work with or support young people.
• Solution is an activity designed to help you reflect on how effectively your service supports young people accessing mental health care. By scoring 12 key support experiences, teams can identify strengths, gaps, and areas for improvement. The goal is not to judge, but to spark honest reflection, conversation, and change.

These resources are recommended to be used alongside the existing manifestos, which young people established in the Our Mind Our Future project, and agree are still relevant and important.

The project ensured that young people’s voices were heard and that their insights would continue to shape the future of mental health support. As one young person shared, “It was an open opportunity that allowed young people who wouldn’t usually meet to have a chance to make a change together. That way, it brought lots of interesting ideas, with lots of different backgrounds and experiences from each of us from all over, that mirrored young people’s needs in our own areas. It was a great way to do something new but positive and productive.”

Another young person added, “It has definitely given me a broader perspective of legislation and how that changes during shifts in government and a bigger perspective on mental health nationally, which I can take back to other projects.”

ProMo Cymru and Youth Access committed to using the key themes from the discussion to shape the government’s agenda, continuing to advocate for the manifesto recommendations, and sharing these valuable resources.