Healthy Minds apprentices update.

University of York & University of Oxford -

This co-production is a study from the University of York and the University of Oxford, they have created an online service with resources and activities to support young people with anxiety. We had a meeting with one of the professors from University of Oxford and she talked us through the website and the process of developing the service. We also got to experience some of the resources and give our opinions on how they made us feel and if we feel they would be effective. We will also be given access to the site to be able to experience it properly on our own and then be given the opportunity to give feedback.

The apprentices have been collaborating with the University of York on a number of projects. The most current project is the OSCA website review. OSCA is an online help tool created by the University of Oxford, to help young people who suffer from social anxiety. As the website was planned and designed by individuals who live south of the country, it was important for them to reach groups from all over the UK to ensure the programme is not limited to those who reside in and around Oxford. This is where the apprentices have been approached. They have been asked to review the website to ensure that it is appropriate for young people but also caters to the Bradford demographic. The apprentices have gained access to the site so that they are able to trial and test it, so they are able to determine whether it provides effective tools to combat social anxiety. 

Bradstarz and Local offer

Bradstarz is a group that meets once a month for young people with special educational needs. Matt Elliot wanted to create a group of young people with SEND to share their views and opinions in areas they believe Bradford needs to improve on. We helped Matt create a logo which young people would like and we helped create the name Bradstarz, we have attended the Bradstarz meetings and been involved in the activities.

We worked with Matt Elliot to improve the new Bradford local offer to make it accessible for young people.  

Born in Bradford

 We have had a lot of co-production with Born in Bradford. One of the co-production sessions was about new research about school dinners in Bradford and how it affects young people in high school. We shared views and opinions on how school dinners and school affected us. Another project we were involved in was the post 16 age of wonder. This project is all about getting the young people from the age of wonder study to carry on with the studies and consent. We had to look at all the different parts of the research and give an opinion on different ways they get their medical research, for example blood test and another big question is how even though the young people have to consent should the parents of the young people still be involved or not with information like emails or newsletters.

The apprentices regularly meet with the Born in Bradford /  Age of Wonder team. They will co-produce together on lots of pieces of work. The most recent work the apprentices have worked on is the Food in Bradford School (FID) study. The aim of this study is to identify whether similar eating patterns have linkage to relevant data streams such as eating disorders, food insecurity, and overall health. 

KCU revamp / KCU college 

This year we decided to revamp KCU entirely in order to make it more engaging yet informative. We have taken time out to research, trial and reflect on different delivery styles in order to appeal to every demographic. We developed a new KCU presentation for key stage 1, 2, 3 and 4. We also created a project for special educational needs and disabilities groups and post-16.

These are  few things we have coming:

• New topics and areas for discussion

• Expanding our demographic

• New resources

• New activities and icebreaker

• Up to date research & stats

• New music video!

We created a KCU workshop for college students for 16 + . We made new activities which fit their age demographic. We created an icebreaker which was the game 21 and we made two new activities like the DIP (Discrimination , Identity  and poverty.) which are based on the KCU stories and the envelope activity which spreads awareness on sharing information.

Healthy Minds Summit

The Healthy Minds summit was an event to highlight the improvements the sector needs to make to best support people struggling with mental health in Bradford.

The Healthy Minds summit was held to showcase the work that is being done around Bradford. This year's event was all about our lived experiences and some individuals shared their stories and talked about how they got support. Hollie and Sadaf did an icebreaker which was a Mexican wave. We also wrote a poem about our lived experiences as young women in Bradford, this was called ‘shaped by our experiences’ and was read out by Ellie and Sadaf.