YRN London

National Deaf CAMHS - Young Researcher Network 2010/11 grant winners

National Deaf Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (National Deaf CAMHS) is a new service launched in October 2009 and provides a specialist mental health and treatment service for deaf children with a range of emotional and behavioural problems. This research project will be in conjunction with Merseyside Society for Deaf People’s Deaf Active Youth Service who are currently responsible for delivering a youth-led region wide youth service which incorporates Merseyside, Cheshire and Manchester.

National Deaf CAMHS has carried out a number of initiatives to involve service users and partner organisations in the shaping of the service both now and in the future. However, young deaf people have, to date, had limited involvement in the development of the service. First and foremost, therefore, this grant will establish a platform for young deaf people to influence both the kinds of services that deaf CAMHS provides and how they do so. We see this project as the first step in establishing such a platform for the longer term for young deaf people to influence the kinds of services that deaf CAMHS provides; but also demonstrate the significance of youth involvement in a wide range of advisory and governance contexts such as local, regional and national youth advisory groups, youth parliaments and the creation of self-sustainable and youth-led and youth run social enterprises.

The project will give priority to young people who are BSL (British Sign Language) users.

Children’s Active Involvement Service, Islington Council - Young Researcher Network 2010/11 grant winners

The Children’s Active Involvement Service is part of Islington Children’s Social Care and its role is to engage with children and young people who receive services from the department to find out their views on those services and actively involve them in delivering service improvements. The question we have chosen is “In what ways do children and young people who have social workers want to participate”.

We want to find out what would encourage 11-16 year olds to take part. We want to find out what other things we could do that would support their participation. We want to find out what things put them off so we can take them into account and avoid them if we can. We want to look at what kind of projects and activities they prefer and if they find it better to be surveyed by phone, face to face or in groups. We would like to talk to them about what are the best incentives. We also need to know what they think are the priority areas for us to get views about and have young people involved in projects on.