Bee Counted Health Inspectors

The Greater Manchester Youth Agreement (2018) sets out the expectations that young people have of their health services. This covers many areas of services, including how they capture and act on youth voice within delivery. Bee Counted was created to inspect services based on these standards, and offer recommendations for better practice.

The young people who were trained as young inspectors inspected nine mental health services across GM, looking at CAMHS, Crisis Care and Mental Healthy School Teams. They expressed their ideas for change to the services through number recommendations offered within each final report, which demonstrates their feelings around the services and ways they can improve their practice. This has helped embed youth voice into mental health services, and ensure that young people who access these services feel listened to.

The reports that young people create through this process are shared with the services themselves, as well as being circulated through higher level structures such as senior health boards. This is to showcase the work of the inspectors and also ensure accountability for the recommendations offered by the group for the services involved. 

Three of the inspectors were invited to share their experiences at the Greater Manchester Children’s Board, where they spoke to local leaders and decision makers about their role as inspectors and what they have learned about the process.

One of the young inspectors wrote a blog about her experiences of being a young inspector, and the influence of this process on her future career path. 

Being part of the Bee counted inspections was an amazing experience as it was an experience that not many other services could provide, it helped young people being able to give Health services written reports after being inspected which really helped me feel that my input was important. I really enjoyed doing the inspections themselves whether they were online or in person as everyone was really friendly, the Bee counted Inspections helped me grow even more confidence as at the start I was quiet and not sharing my ideas as much but as we did more inspections I was sharing more of my ideas"     

- Young Inspector

Working closely with the Greater Manchester Mental Health Board to report key findings and update on the progress on the inspections has given regular opportunities for commissioners to understand the impact of Bee Counted and the value of this programme on the development and integration of youth voice in a mental health context. This programme has been refunded until March 2026. The aim to strengthen its impact on GM MH services.

The young inspectors have had the opportunity to speak with mental health practitioners from across Greater Manchester, hearing about their services and the impact of these for young people who access them. The influence of young people through this project is shown through the changes that services make as a result of the report and recommendations created by young people.

From the inspections completed, common themes were identified in the recommendations based on the service inspected; 

• MHST 
  • Having a dedicated space for sessions 
  •  Expanding youth voice 
  • Training and recruitment of staff 
• Crisis Care 
  • Advertisement of services 
  • Expanding youth voice 
• VCSE 
  • Creating youth voice opportunities 
  • Suitable waiting rooms

Youth Focus NW

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