CWP CAMHS’ Mymind developments are at the forefront of utilising social media to actively engage with children, young people and their families both across the footprint of the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP), but wider – with our resources being accessed globally from countries as diverse as USA, Australia and New Zealand, Kenya, UAE, Kazakhstan and Indonesia. Since its launch there have been 161,161 visits to Mymind.org.uk with over 660 K individual page views.
Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s CAMHS service launched an innovative website Mymind.org.uk and the twitter handle @mymindfeed on World Mental Health Day 2011; at this time, it was relatively unheard of for Child and Adolescent Mental Health services to engage with service users via social media.
From the outset, Mymind has worked collaboratively with children, young people and their families to ensure the site has been developed by young people, for young people placing us on the top rungs of Hart’s Ladder of Participation.
The Headstrong report document the process from beginning to end, demonstrates true inclusion and participation: mymind.org.uk/headstrong-report.pdf
CWP CAMHS’ Mymind developments are at the forefront of utilising social media to actively engage with children, young people and their families both across the footprint of the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP), but wider – with our resources being accessed globally from countries as diverse as USA, Australia and New Zealand, Kenya, UAE, Kazakhstan and Indonesia. Since its launch there have been 161,161 visits to Mymind.org.uk with over 660 K individual page views.
CWP CAMHS utilizes Twitter to direct people back to the website and our dedicated YouTube account. youtube.com/user/mymindfeed. Animation from mymind.org.uk can also be accessed via our YouTube channel. For example, the section of the site aimed at children aged 5-12, follows Max through his CAMHS journey. Max is an animated character developed by young people and his roving reporter video clips include the voices of young service users and CAMHS practitioners:
mymind.org.uk/5-12/first-visit.html Max is also the star of many leaflets and posters encouraging involvement and collaboration from young people. These posters are in the CAMHS bases around CWP. Many of the clips featured in Mymindfeed’s YouTube channel have been created collaboratively with young people indeed, the ‘beautiful day’ introduction to mindfulness video has been viewed over 170k times! youtube.com/watch?v=5d46amlJEkI and has recently featured in The Guardian Online article about teaching Mindfulness to children http://gu.com/p/4hj6x/stw
The pages about ‘staying in hospital’ are helping to reduce stigma associated with inpatient tier 4 CAMHS have recently been updated, and can help to answer frequently asked questions about what this is like. Summer 2016 saw the opening of our specialist adolescent inpatient unit.
One young person Bella, who is one of CWP CAMHS’ first young advisors and who has had a key role in the Ancora House development was recently featured in the BBC’s ‘In the Mind’ series on BBC North West Tonight: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03jw4tj
Young people have been involved in the development of Ancora House from the outset, including the design of the bedrooms, choosing the name of the new building and the names of the wards. www.Mymind.org.uk/13-19/staying-in-hospital.html# Young people can access these resources about tier 4 CAMHS during sessions with their CAMHS worker as well as in the privacy of their own home.
The Box’ and ‘Box +’ have downloadable podcasts and worksheets for YP to access at home or on the move: www.cwpcamhscentre.mymind.org.uk/?page_id=20
QR codes have been created for all of the resources available on mymind.org.uk –
Every CAMHS worker at CWP has access to these codes. These can be added to reports and letters to young people and their families.
The site has a page called ‘MySleep’ with downloadable resources to help parents foster good sleep habits in their children; this includes sleep diaries, social stories and visual time-tables. These resources have been downloaded over 9K times.
cwpcamhscentre.mymind.org.uk/?page_id=8876
4D Toolkit
The interactive 4D Toolkit pages have been developed to compliment the 4Dtoolkit cards. http://cwpcamhscentre.mymind.org.uk/?page_id=6904
The 20 cards in the toolkit focus on specific Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Skills in the four key areas of Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Interpersonal Effectiveness and Emotion Regulation. Each card has information about a specific skill and a QR code which links to a page (or pages) on www.mymind.org.uk
Team of Life
This narrative tool to help build resilience in children and young people takes a sporting metaphor (team). It has been developed by CWP CAMHS’ Vicky Eames in conjunction with the Dulwich Centre in Australia and is an effective intervention for young people who are
• hard to reach, excluded or marginalised
• experiencing low level mental health problems
• recovering from mental health problems
• suffering from losses or trauma
• struggling with the transition to secondary school
• finding it hard to fit in or make friends
• experiencing problems related to self-esteem
Mymind authors and supervisors
We have trained CAMHS clinicians and administration staff to write ‘posts’ on the news section as ‘supervisors’ to overview the content. This information about what is happening out and about in CWP CAMHS. The participation workers work alongside young people to blog about their experiences: cwpcamhscentre.mymind.org.uk/?p=8681
All posts published on mymind.org.uk are simultaneously tweeted via our twitter account @mymindfeed. @mymindfeed has over 1700 followers. It is headed by a CAMHS clinician who tweets daily about the fantastic innovative resources available on www.MyMind.org.uk , responds to tweets and comments on relevant events such as mental health awareness week.
We have young people, parents, organisations and professionals working in the field who follow us. MMF’s team of participation workers regularly tweet about their work with young people. Recently, via twitter @mymindfeed were directed to a blog created by a young person who had accessed support via CWP CAMHS. With Freya’s permission, this post has been published: www.cwpcamhscentre.mymind.org.uk/?p=10809 this generated comments from across twitter and has now featured on the websites on national organisations.
Following extensive research by our participation groups, Mymindfeed recently launched our own Facebook page www.facebook.com/cwpcamhs/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel Young people identified the role of Facebook is somewhat different from twitter. This will include information about the different CAMHS sites across the trust and updates about the outcome of the #listenup participation groups. The Facebook page has a member of staff as moderator and young people reps as page editors. Comments submitted for inclusion on the page have to be moderated before publication.
The Mymind team relationship with CWP’s Communication and Engagement Team (Comms) can only be described as exemplary. This ensures that mymind.org.uk is always present. 2018 will see an update of the current mymind website to ensure it remains relevant to children and young people’s mental health services for the years to come.
CWP CAMHS and Mymind work closely with partner organisations; including schools (see team of life project) and voluntary organisations. Community Paediatricians throughout Wirral direct families to the information developed through MySleep. 2017 will see new self-help resources developed in collaboration with children and young people in Cheshire East as part of the Emotionally Healthy Schools Project.
Mymind work together with the 5-19 wellbeing service in Cheshire West who have recently begun offering online email support to young people aged 11-19 in the local area.
Young people are part of the Mymind steering group, and have a key role in the direction of any service developments. We recently commissioned CWP CAMHS’ Young Advsiors to review the website and we are now in the process of future proofing the website ready for the next 5 -10 years. CWP CAMHS have worked collaboratively with Early Intervention Psychosis Team to create short films.
Wirral CAMHS, alongside AMH’s and youth services run the Kidstime project that supports families where one or both parents have a mental health difficulty.
Posts first published on mymind.org.uk have been reposted by organisations such as OCD Action: www.school.ocdaction.org.uk/articles/youth-mental-health-cheshire-wirral/. There is a link to mymind.org.uk on the CAMHS Evidence Based Practice (EBPU) www.mycamhschoices.org/help/
At the recent North West CYP IAPT conference – @mymindfeed were second on the tweet leader board – highlighted by @DrFifiWG www.twitter.com/DrFifiWG/status/573538642263740416
Tweets from @mymindfeed are re-tweeted and favourite by a range of influentialtweeters – this means that often our re-tweet reach can be as high as 150,000 in any one week.
Lesley Dougan, Lead for mymind at that time, is presented at the National Digital CAMHS Conference taking place in Birmingham in July 2016 with Ben Samata, one of our Listen Up group. Lesley presented again at the 2017 Conference
Co-Production – The headstrong report: http://mymind.org.uk/headstrong-report.pdf details how young people were involved in the development service from its inception. Young people, parents and referrers took part in a planning day for the Columbia Team which has led to a number of helpful resources; the ‘book-a leaf’ idea evolved from a suggestion from ‘Ben’ a young service user:
http://cwpcamhscentre.mymind.org.uk/?p=6690
The fantastic work done by young people involved in the development of CWP CAMHS, including the CAMHS Crew, tier 4 inpatient services and Wirral Peer Mentors has featured on mymind.org.uk
Ryan’s experience of becoming a peer mentor as part of our peer2peer youthink
Project http://cwpcamhscentre.mymind.org.uk/?p=10218. Jasmine, a service user recently wrote about her experiences of mymind on CYP IAPT website: myiapt “why mymind rocks” www.myapt.org.uk/young-people/ mymind-rocks-hsj-award-special/
Social media is integral to the continued development of CAMHS. In 2011, we could have not anticipated the influence of social media. Up until recently, mymind and @mymindfeed was seen as something staff did as an ‘add on’ to the core role. In the last 21/2 years, the impact of having a member of staff who can dedicate 15 hours a week to the running and development of mymind has paid dividends.
The initial challenges faces were those of organisation, having to demonstrate the need to engage in social media and the importance of making accurate information about mental health issues relevant to children and young people. This was overcome by ensuring clear lines of governance and practice guidelines – these are now recognised as an example of good practice for social media by other trusts, for example, South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS FT.
Innovative concepts often require stepping into the unknown. Having the support of senior executives and clinical directors with the courage to challenge the status quo and engage with young people in meaningful ways has been central to the development of mymind.
It is imperative that children and young people are included from the outset in developing a resource that is for young people, by young people. This has to be in a meaningful way, and not tokenistic. It is crucial to ensure that time is given for clinicians and admin staff to write ‘posts’ for the website and that there is someone dedicated to ensuring the smooth running of the website and twitter feed; supported by a steering group.
To ensure there are clear lines of governance for both the website and twitter feed.
Funding the initial project was sought through a successful CQuin bid. To ensure that the site remains contemporaneous requires on-going development, which of course takes both time and financial commitments. This continues to be an issue when budgets are tight.
In the past, because staff author and supervise posts as an add-on their main role and because it would then go to our comms service for final approval, there could often be a time delay between a post being written and subsequently published.
However, as we now have a dedicated clinician overviewing pending posts, and due to the close relationship between Mymind and comms, the turn-around between a post being submitted for approval and being posted is within the working day.
We have recently submitted a business plan for the next 12 months, to further develop mymind and ensure it continues to be regarded as an example of excellent practice.
Mymind is a team effort, whilst there is a clinician whose role is to oversee the day to day running and development of Mymind, she is supported by a network of colleagues. This includes clinical directors, service managers and clinicians. The steering group meets every 8 weeks and additional virtual meetings can be arranged if needed. There is a generic cwpadmin@mymind.org.uk email – which can be accessed virtually if needed. We have staff who deputise for Annual leave and illness and there are contingency plans in place in case of long term sickness.
The @mymindfeed twitter account can be accessed by our team of tweeters, all of whom could take on the role of ‘chief tweeter’ if needed. To recognise the power of social media and to ensure the information provided remains up to date. Always respond to your followers on twitter; their favourites and Re-tweets and to link tweets to information on the website. Continue to run focus groups, seeking the feedback of children, young people and their families on the website, resources and how they can be further developed and improved.
Evaluation
Mymind commissioned young people to review and evaluate the effectiveness and usability of the website – as a result mymind.org.uk is undergoing modernisation to ensure that it is future proof.
We were contacted by the NHS Confederation Mental Health Network who were seeking examples of work in designing and delivering initiatives and services for people living with mental health problems and using these to produce concise case studies for publication on
www.mentalhealthpartnerships.com/whatworks after them reading about Mymind in the ‘CWP Big Book of Best Practice’
Mymindfeed were winners in:
2014 I-Network Awards
2015 Positive Practice in MH Awards
2015 HSJ Value in Health Care Awards
2016 Positive Practice Awarrds
Mymindfeed were highly commended in:
2014 Positive Practice in MH Awards
2015 HSJ Awards
Is there any other information you would like to add?
MyMind.org.uk and @Mymindfeed is an outstanding resource designed by young people for young people. It has helped set the direction for young people’s participation in CAMHS and changed the culture in CWP CAMHS. The site has been used by other areas as an example of good practice and continues to grow with new projects coming online and new service users getting involved. It is a truly innovative resource.
Dr Fiona Pender -Clinical Director – CWP CAMHS
Fiona.pender@cwp.nhs.uk
We are further developing our Young Peoples role in the governance set up of Mymind. we are developing Social Media roles were young people can act as volunteers within CWP and lead on social media developments, they will also be leading on the revamp of Mymind.org.uk
The future looks positive for mymind, with greater Young peoples leadership, young peoples direction with clinical support.
