Blog content: National Lived Experience Awards

Experts by experience: Young advisor, Grace

The National Lived Experience Awards are awards held by the Cygnet Hospital group to help recognise what work those with lived experience are now doing in services across the country. I was lucky enough to be nominated and am now a finalist for the ‘Hope and Positivity’ award because of a 2 year long project where, alongside the South West Provider Collaborative, I created Distress Management booklets for young people within inpatient settings to help push a change in culture towards de-escalation and reduced restrictive practice. This project started due to the incredible work the CFHD participation team do, and the support they gave me in sharing my voice and starting this kind of work.

The booklet’s first draw up came to fruition whilst I was still in general hospital and I wanted to see how we could start helping young people feel more confident to self soothe and regulate and start reducing the amount of restrictive interventions that I saw were being relied on. As we know, the use of restrictive practice is not only traumatising but it is meant to be the last port of call within treatment settings. Unfortunately, due to the pressures many wards face and the lack of training we see for staff members, this is not always the case. By challenging these institutions, by challenging their care, by challenging their culture, we are protecting and saving lives. Resources like these are simple and effective ways to start helping young people differently.
Being encouraged to begin this work and start a draw up meant so much to me as a young person and what I didn’t recognise then was truly how this was the beginning of so much vital work we see participation do. Now being an adult and seeing how it’s grown from a drawing I did on my hospital bed to a leaflet that’s spread across the south west is astonishing and I am so pleased with the journey its gone on alongside me into navigating adulthood.

The service really is pushing to change the way we view care and the culture that is so embedded, and I feel extraordinarily grateful to CFHD for the opportunities and the willingness to hear voices like mine in the process. We are facing a mental health crisis within young people nationwide SO we must start truly uprooting the culture within. From the bottom up. These booklets are hopefully only the beginning.