Animation brings to life how everyone can get involved in the development of the region’s mental health trust
Service users, carers, families, and staff at NSFT have brought the Trust’s Participation aims to life with the creation of a new animation.
Participation is key to creating better mental health services. NSFT is committed to enabling all people with lived experience of mental ill health, their carers, and families, together with other interested parties, to participate. The animation has been developed to show people how they can be part of the development of NSFT.
The project was launched after the completion of the People Participation Strategy, which was co-designed with service users, carers, families, and staff.
Participation is important to the Trust and has already led to improvements, including:
- changes in letters to young people.
- designing new services such as the Lotus Maternal Therapeutic Outreach Team
- service users joining interviews for new staff, as equal and valued members of the panels.
The people involved in developing the strategy decided that they wanted it presented in multiple formats, including an animation.
People Participation Leads worked with past and present service users, carers, and staff, all with lived experience, in collaboration with the animation company, Rebecca Osbourne studios.
There were regular meetings as a working group to think about how to turn the key messages into a visual animation. People brought many creative and imaginative ideas to the table, along with inspirational messages. The voices you hear throughout the animation are some of the people involved in the design.
Feedback from those who have seen the video has been overwhelmingly positive. One People Participation Lead said: “There have been some strong emotional responses. Even a few tears, as people are proud to have been involved, not only in creating the animation but in Participation generally.”
Service users involved in making the video said they wanted to make documents and strategies more accessible and interactive. “We wanted to achieve more awareness of Participation, and for people to know that Participation is for everybody,” said one.