Inspiring Young Voices
Inspiring Young Voices - influence positive change
Click on the above link to find out more about the amazing work that Inspiring Young voices are undertaking to support young people across the Highlands.
Kooth 19-25 Mental Health Project
Inspiring Young Voices are trying to expand Kooth (an online mental health community) to be made available for 19-25-year-olds in Highland. We have funding to create a focus group to campaign for this resource and are looking for young people to get involved! Get in touch with us (email: emma@inspiringyoungvoices.org) if you- or someone you know/work with are interested in joining, and please consider sharing this project with other people & organisations! Read on to find out more...
Project Information
Kooth is a digital mental health and wellbeing community that has been made available across Highland for 11-18-year-olds. It enables young people to access self-help resources, peer support and counselling free and anonymously. Kooth is easily accessible from a web browser and can be found at: https://www.kooth.com
This is an incredibly useful resource for young people to have access to and could help address the support needed for those on often extensive mental health service waiting lists. Unfortunately, however, Kooth is not currently available to all young people in Highland. Those in the 19-25-year age bracket cannot create a Kooth account due to existing age restrictions.
At Inspiring Young Voices, we feel strongly that 19-25-year-olds should have access to the benefits of Kooth, and this is an issue that was first raised to us by the young people from our own Inspire Highland mental health group. This age range is a period of time where young people are often going through significant transitions in life, which can be in the form of moving onto further education, joining the workforce, living independently for the first time, and even changing from youth to adult health services (plus so much more!). These can be positive moments, but they can also cause extra stress and put a strain on an individual’s pre-existing mental health struggles. Therefore, we believe that it would be incredibly valuable for these young people to be able to use Kooth in times of need. Kooth is also already available to young people ages 10-25 in other parts of the UK, so we are hoping this same service will be expanded for Highland communities, but evidence and funding are needed to make this happen.
The Solution- We have successfully received funding from the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund to run a collective advocacy campaign, working alongside young people, to provide evidence of need for increased mental health services and resources for 19-25-year-olds. This will be presented to NHS Highland to show proof that these young people would benefit from being able to access Kooth, and that this expanded resource would be worth funding. We are looking for young people (ages 19-25), with lived mental health experience, to join a focus group to discuss where mental health support is lacking and the changes that they would like to see made.
*A note for youth workers, professionals and organisations- we would love it if you could share this information with any young people ages 19-25 that you work with who may be interested in participating in this focus group, or- if you don’t work with this age group- to pass this on to any contacts you are aware of that do.
To get involved or find out more, please contact Emma Thomas: emma@inspiringyoungvoices.org