Tackling Invisible Struggles At The Rethink (@Rethink_) Youth Mental Health Conference

On the 29^th of Octo­ber Kens­ing­ton Town Hall was host to our first co-pro­duced youth men­tal health conference.

A team of young, expert Cham­pi­ons worked along­side Rethink Men­tal Ill­ness staff & NHS CAM­HS Com­mis­sion­ers to co-design and co-deliv­er our first ever youth men­tal health con­fer­ence. The young cham­pi­ons and com­mis­sion­ers designed the look and feel of the day as well as identi­fy­ing the speak­ers; Jonny Ben­jamin and Hus­sain Man­aw­er. Oth­er vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions con­trib­uted to the day by run­ning work­shops and stands on the day, we are grate­ful to Founders & Coders, Time To Change, Ham­mer­smith & Ful­ham Mind and No Bounds.

The co-pro­duced aims of the con­fer­ence were to cre­ate a safe and wel­com­ing space which facil­it­ated open dia­logue around men­tal health in youth cul­ture. The day also included inform­a­tion on loc­al ser­vices, skills devel­op­ment through inter­act­ive work­shops, shar­ing of volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and insight into the trans­form­a­tion plans for men­tal health services.

The con­fer­ence opened with a spoken word poem from cham­pi­on and youth work­er Harry Wills. His pas­sion­ate poem touched on themes of ste­reo­types of being a child in care. His dynam­ic per­form­ance set the tone for the event.

After some power­ful con­tri­bu­tions from the cham­pi­ons and com­mis­sion­ers; Jonny Ben­jamin was the next per­son to speak. He took the audi­ence through his grip­ping jour­ney of under­stand­ing his own men­tal health. Jonny dis­cussed how the kind­ness of a stranger allowed him to pull through one of his toughest points in life. Jonny’s hon­esty showed us that we can use our neg­at­ive exper­i­ences to help oth­ers with their struggles.

We then made our way to the first work­shops of the day. I star­ted with Step-Up Trans­itions, an inter­act­ive work­shop aimed at provid­ing young people with prac­tic­al tools to build their resi­li­ence dur­ing major trans­itions in their lives. The ses­sion was a mix of activ­it­ies, role plays, dis­cus­sions and games to get us reflect­ing on how we can do small things to improve our well­being and resi­li­ence. The work­shop also allowed a chance for young people to have dir­ect dis­cus­sions with some com­mis­sion­ers who are respons­ible for deliv­er­ing young people men­tal health ser­vices, and vice versa.

I also stopped by the Well-being through Art work­shop run by Apex, a spoken word artist from No Bounds. We were encour­aged to reflect on our experience’s and com­mu­nic­a­tion styles to express our indi­vidu­al story through lyr­i­cism. Before I knew it, the group had pro­duced songs and poems about their jour­ney. We were inspired to con­tin­ue util­ising the pen to express our nar­rat­ive out­side of the workshop.