On Tuesday, myself and four other members of Mentality (along with
L, our head youth worker) headed up to London, to take part in a youth
takeover day. The train journey up was pretty uneventful; we filled in
worksheets to get us thinking about the aim of the takeover (for us,
getting our voices heard on GP services) and sorted out the parts to our
presentation.
Once we got to London, we had a chance to see
the Paddington statue and look around the Paddington shop. If you know
me, you can imagine my reaction to being surrounded by bears!
After
that, we met up with the sixth member of our group (who'd travelled
separately from Cornwall), then caught the Tube to Oxford Street.
Once
we got to Oxford Street, we had a brief chance to see the Christmas
lights before finding Pizza Express- we were all super hungry! A pizza
and (weird) chips later, we were refuelled and ready to find the hotel.
We
found the hotel quite quickly, and got checked in. Then we all had some
time to get settled (and get into onesies, in my case!) before we
regrouped and filmed some 'video diary' stuff. This took quite a while,
particularly as some people (er, possibly me) kept laughing, and we had
rerecord everything after forgetting to turn the microphone on! The
filming we did is for some university students who are making a
documentary about mental health, Mentality and Off the Record- very
exciting!!
After we finished filming it was pretty late, and with an early start ahead we all felt it was time to go to bed.
On
Wednesday morning, we got up and dressed really quickly, then went to
breakfast. There was a bit of confusion as it turned out we weren't
booked in for breakfast after all, but we got that sorted easily enough.
Breakfast was a standard hotel breakfast- the highlight being Nutella
sachets, which I dipped croissants in. Delicious!
After we had
eaten and packed up, we met Frances, one of the Department of Health
people. She accompanied us to the Department of Health itself, which
made things easier and quicker. Once we got to the (slightly imposing)
building, we had to get our name badges and security passes- it all felt
very official!!
The takeover day was held in a conference
room in the Department of Health; to get there, we had to go in a glass
elevator- very cool!! There were already commissioners and young people
sat in the conference room, so L told us to split up and mingle (or
'network'!). N and I (my room-mate for the night) sat on a table with a
couple of commissioners, and we were soon joined by a few more. It was a
good chance to get to know people in an informal way.
The
conference started quite promptly with an introduction and an ice
breaker, where we had to find things in common between us and the people
on our tables. Though we didn't find anything we *all* had in common,
my partner and I found we had a shared interest in singing, and that we
both dislike it when there's too much reverb on a microphone! After the
ice breaker everyone seemed really at ease with each other; it clearly
fulfilled it's intention.
Out of three groups of young people
and one other group, Mentality were first up with our presentation. We
had a thirty minute slot to speak about our views and experiences
surrounding GPs; one of the members of our group produced a report on
GPs, young people and mental health, so that formed a large part of our
presentation. We also got everyone to do an activity during which they
got into pairs, with one person talking about their job and the other
acting out a GP 'trait'- for example, making too many notes and not
listening properly. However, there were also some positive things, such
as listening well and being empathetic. Following the activity, we got
some feedback to tie everything up, then had five minutes for questions.
Overall
I feel that our presentation went really well. Everyone listening got
involved in the activity, and the feedback we got proved that it worked
really well. On top of that, all the members of our group had a chance
to have their say, and I'm so so proud of everyone for how amazing they
were! We also received lots of fab feedback, which shows that it did
come across well.
After our session, another group did a
session on mental health, which involved a quiz- the table I was sat on
won, so we got chocolate coins!! We also made pledges about mental
health. I really like getting pledges from commissioners as it's a good
way of recording what they're aiming to do, and makes them think not
just about what's being said but also about actions they can take. I
especially liked that it wasn't just the decision-makers who made
pledges, but all of us: reducing mental health stigma &
discrimination is a job belonging to all of us!!
There was a
short break after that, which was a good chance to chat to people and do
some 'networking'.
Following the break, there were two more sessions:
one on school nursing and one on co-ordinated care. They were both super
good, and there was plenty of great discussion and feedback. I was
especially interested in the co-ordinated care as it's something I
hadn't heard of before. It's basically where everyone involved in your
healthcare knows what's going on- for example, a GP knows the outcome of
a physiotherapy visit, and the physiotherapist knows about a recent
hospital admission or whatever. Co-ordinated care is really important as
it prevents people from having to tell things over and over, it means
that everyone's on the same page, and, in case of emergency, it makes
things a lot quicker and a lot safer. However, at the moment,
co-ordinated care is sadly lacking, both in mental health, physical
health and cases where the two combine. Therefore, it was good to find
out about it, and to give some feedback to those with the power to *do*
something.
At the end of the day, we stayed for a while to
chat a bit, and we filmed some more 'video diary' stuff. Soon, however,
it was time to wave goodbye to the Department of Health, and to head
back onto the tube. As we had some time left, we decided to go to
Southbank, and walked from there to Parliament- a great opportunity to
take tourist-y pictures haha!
Once we got to the Houses of Parliament,
we bought food and sat on the steps to eat it. Afterwards, it was time
to rush to get the tube, and then to get on the train- back to Bristol,
tired but happy!!