Trust staff are animated to help young people with admission to Mill Lodge
Young people and staff at our Trust’s child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) inpatient unit, Mill Lodge, have worked together to develop a new animated video designed to let future service users know what to expect when staying at the unit.
The video was developed over the course of two weeks and was designed to help future service users feel more prepared for their visit and to reduce any anxiety they may feel about staying on an inpatient ward.
A group of young service users worked with York-based video company, Biomation, to build the characters, create the background music, record the voice over and film the ‘stop motion’ animation that features throughout the video.
The group also worked collaboratively with staff and BioAnimation to write the script for the video, discussing what information they felt a young person would need to know before being admitted onto the unit and ensuring this was presented in a fun and accessible way.
The model of Lucy Douglas
Lucy Douglas, CAMHS Activities Facilitator at our Trust worked alongside young service users on the video and said: “The young people loved working on this project as it offered a range of different ways to get involved at all levels of ability, ensuring everyone had an opportunity to play a part. The plasticine models used throughout the animation were built by our young people and provided much amusement (I’m the lady with the yellow hair in the pink dress!)
“Being admitted onto an inpatient ward can be an anxious time for anyone, but has a particular impact on younger people. We wanted to ensure we provided enough information to reduce the worries young people face when coming to stay on our ward but to do it in a fun and interesting way and the participation of our existing young service users was really important to this.
“It was a great project to be a part of and it was brilliant to see the young people become so involved, to see them work so well as a team and to watch them learn a new set of skills. They took real pride in their work and in knowing the effort they put into the video will help other young people in a similar situation to them in the future.”
Download a transcript of the Inpatient CAMHS video
Our Trust’s Inpatient CAMHS Unit is based at Mill Lodge on Huntington Road, York.