"Nobody has ever asked me that" Reimagining mental health care through collaborative research with young people from New Zealand

Abstract

The past decade has represented a remarkable turning point for youth mental health around the world. Notably, awareness has increased of the challenges facing traditional youth mental health services and the need to address these. However, historically, little attention has been turned to the voices of young people themselves and the role they may play as active participants in the process of renewing and rejuvenating mental health services. While an international body of literature is growing which attends to young people’s perspectives on improving mental health care, relatively little research which collaborates with young people has been conducted within New Zealand. The research described in this thesis aims to address this gap in our theoretical and clinical understanding by working with New Zealand’s young people to envision a mental health system which truly works for and with them. This study involved eight participatory workshops conducted in six locations across New Zealand. Ninety-four young people ranging in age from 16 to 25 participated in these. The workshop methodology was inspired by participatory action research and incorporated a series of mixed-medium activities including surveys, focus-group style discussions, responses to prompts, creative work, and presentations. A thematic analysis was conducted on the transcriptions of these workshops which explored how young people envisioned their ideal mental health service. The results of this analysis were split into two broad categories: firstly, participants’ preferences regarding mental health professionals and secondly, mental health services themselves. There were five themes related to young people’s ideal mental health professional. These were: a clinician with whom they shared a background; who is friendly; professional; respectful; and responsive to their individual needs. Seven themes were identified which related to young people’s ideal mental health service. These themes were: a place that is comfortable; accessible; welcoming; embedded in the community; holistic; adaptable; and youth focussed. The young people who participated in this study articulately described their visions for mental health care. The results of this project demonstrate that young people can be empowered to contribute to novel, creative, and germane solutions to the problems facing youth mental health care. Additionally, these results may be effectively incorporated with research informed practices from around the world to recommend changes to the practices of both mental health clinicians and services in New Zealand which could improve the engagement of young people in services. This supports a future for collaborative service design both within New Zealand and internationally, which draws on the expertise of young people and research informed best practice.