Projects | Service visioning with the NHS

The Early Lab team present the findings document generated by their action-research activity conducted on the Norfolk field trip three months earlier. Two presentations are delivered at two venues in Norwich: one to senior health commissioners, management and Youth Council and one to NSFT clinicians. The document represents a bold vision for a radically transformed mental health service in the region for children and young people. The findings were well received by all and now form the core of NSFT's transformation plan going forward. Read more

The Early Lab student team runs a week of workshops in Norwich with NSFT's Youth Council (service users), clinicians and representatives of regional service provision. The aim is to help all participants imagine a compelling new vision for a totally transformed regional mental health service for children and young people, how it would function and what it would look like. Read more

Early Lab has three weeks to prepare its new student team for the Norfolk field trip. Over three sessions, the team get to know each other, understand the field trip objectives, its scope, the resources they can bring to it, learn how to listen and ask questions better, develop their workshop plans and assign team roles. The team familiarises itself with recent NHS reports and work by others including Adam Thorpe/Lorraine Gamman, Joachim Halse, Lucy Kimbell and Sarah Schulman. Read more

Following the symposium, Early Lab review applications and select the UAL students to be project team members who will go on the field trip to Norfolk. Team member skills, strengths and fields of interest – presented here – are highly varied and complementary. Its a great team and everyone is excited to get started on the project with NSFT. Read more

Following the Early Lab talks across UAL about the project, interested students attend a one-day symposium in Hackney presenting youth mental health in the context of design for social innovation. A day of workshops and talks about the subject, design methods, tools and processes preparing potential Early Lab student team members. Students get to meet NSFT service users and clinicians as well as designers and researchers active in the field. Read more

In presenting the project to students Early Lab places emphasis on how it provides an opportunity to become involved in a project much earlier than designers are used to. The project is presented as an opportunity for them to experience practicing design in a different way, more relevant to the complexity of contemporary challenges: at the beginning, away from the studio, in the place where a social issue is live, working closely with those that endure it every day. Read more

From an innocent conversation with an NHS psychiatrist over pies in Spitalfields Market, the beginnings of a plan emerged to try a different approach to getting a youth mental health service rethinking itself. Could bringing a group of UAL design students together with a group of young service users help realise this plan? Read more