Hi, my name is Emma. I support the running of Consulting Youth Advisors (CYA) group. My role is to 
ensure young people's feedback is being used to guide positive change in services and organisations across Surrey.
In 2022, CYA were invited to take part in workshop to share our view on the design of Emerald Place Clinic to ensure that the voices of young people with lived experience were include in this project. Emerald Place is a new mental health inpatient unit for young people aged 13 to18. It is the first one to be built in Surrey in over 20 years, and Surrey young people played a key part in shaping its look and feel.
Getting stuck in
During the project workshop, we had a discussion around the different colours we wanted to see used in the building, the different textures, and materials we thought would be good to use. We picked materials that we thought would have more of a warm feeling and less like the textures you might find used in normal hospital furniture. For example, softer texture and fewer plastic materials. We worked with a flip book of different sample materials. We picked out the ones we liked, and thought would be most suitable to have in the clinic. We also talked about what different features we might like to see in the building. For example, having USB ports in the bedrooms for young people to easily charge their phones. A separate entrance for young people was also added for when they first arrive at Emerald Place, to make entering the hospital less daunting.
In addition, we had another workshop to decide on a name for the building. We spent a day thinking about names and deciding on a name we thought was not too clinical and suited the location of the building, which is in a green belt. We thought there were too many hospitals and wards that were named after trees and other nature-related things, but we still wanted the name to reflect the location of the hospital. We settled on Emerald as it represents the greenery around it! It was amazing for us to be the ones that got to make such an important decision! One cool thing at the naming workshop was the live event illustrator, who created a piece of art to show everything we were talking about in the meeting.
What really mattered
Overall, I thought they had done an amazing job, taking our views into account. They managed to build a building that I think incorporated many aspects to help try and make it feel more homely and warm, and less clinical and scary for the young people who may stay there. I really enjoyed getting the chance to see how our views had helped shape the building and to hear the passion from the staff on trying to make the time young people stay there as smooth and comfortable as possible. One of the key features that stood out for me was the outdoor green space that will be available for the young people for when family visit. They can spend time in the outside space and even bring the family dog to visit!
Re-visting Emerald place
At the beginning of this year, two CYA members had the amazing opportunity to visit Emerald Place Clinic.
On the day of the visit to the completed building, we were given a tour around the building and shown all the specific features that were informed by our feedback. We had the opportunity to give any extra feedback and share our views on the building. We fed back how pleased we were with the spaces that were left for young people to add their own art to personalise the space. Additionally, we also shared that one of the therapy rooms had a lot of echo. To improve this, we suggested that having more items on the walls would help this. We were also provided with a nice lunch.
It was nice to be a part of a project from the beginning to the end and to see the project go from being just blueprints and building plans to an actual building.
This project is a great example of participation and co-production done well. I hope for more projects that involve young people's voices as much as this did in the future.
Thank you to everyone who gave us the opportunity to be involved in such a unique and important project.
If you would like to have your voice heard about mental health services in Surrey and get involved in participation projects, email us at user.voice@surreycc.gov.uk or find out more information on our website.
Category: CYA