Young person's engagement report 2022

Healthwatch Walsall engaged with young people aged 14 – 24 from a wide range of backgrounds. They wanted to find out what is important to young people when accessing Health and Social Care services, what they feel is missing and give young people an opportunity to have their voices heard.

From their research we found that although there are many services available, young people are unaware of them and find there are barriers to accessing some services, including primary care and, particularly, mental health. They explored barriers to accessing mental health service with a small group of young people.  Barriers included busy and clinical environments for talking therapy, getting help for a short period of time, long waits for help, being spoken down to or ignored.  They wanted easy access to hobbies and services that can help, particularly digital or texting services.