What supports mental health and wellbeing in youth social action?

This blog, focused on mental health and wellbeing in Youth Social Action (YSA), is part of a learning series produced as part of the #iwill Fund Impact Evaluation and Learning Contract (IELC). We specifically look at four themes that can better understand how quality principles apply to different aspects of YSA and in different context – these are: mental health and wellbeing, equity and antiracism, youth-led design and accessibility in YSA. It is hoped that by reading this it will raise awareness of mental health among young people taking part in YSA activities, which ultimately helps children and young people to have a thriving future.

ReflectionDSDL1 April 2025mental health

What supports anti-racist practice in youth social action?

This blog, focused on anti-racist practice in Youth Social Action (YSA), is part of a learning series produced as part of the #iwill Fu nd Impact Evaluation and Learning Contract (IELC). We specifically look at four themes that can better the quality of YSA practice – these are: mental health and wellbeing, equity and antiracism, youth-led design and accessibility in YSA. It is hoped that by reading this it will raise awareness of anti-racism within YSA activities, which ultimately helps all children and young people to have a thriving future.

ReflectionDSDL1 April 2025Anti-racism

Reflections, refinement and reciprocity - youth voice in the iWill fund

This blog was written by two members of the Young Evaluators Network – Thomas Williams and Irys Chick and contains some of their reflections on how to encourage youth participation in evaluation.

The Young Evaluators Network (YEN) aims to investigate how youth voice practices and disciplines are embedded into the #iwill Fund. The evaluation is conducted by a consortium of organisations - Dartington Service Design Lab, Renaisi-TSIP,YMCA George Williams College, and Ipsos. The work of the YEN is centred around analysing lots of data from #iwill Fund funded projects to better inform youth voice practices, grant-giving, and decision-making processes in the #iwill Fund.

ReflectionDSDL1 April 2025youth voice

How UK Youth’s ‘Thriving Minds’ grantees are developing partnerships to address young people's mental health needs

UK Youth’s Thriving Minds Fund, which spans from 2022-2025, set out to support 99 charities and not-for-profit youth organisations to investigate best practices around mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people. A key ambition of the Fund was to enable and strengthen connection and learning between those working within the youth sector.

As the Learning Partner on the Thriving Minds Fund, we’ve been working with UK Youth and grantees to generate evidence about what enables the sector to work better together and share knowledge around best practices to support young people experiencing mental health challenges.

Turning good intentions into good outcomes

With a change in government and one committed to taking a “preventative approach” to social issues, more than ever, Dartington Service Design Lab’s work is needed.

We’ve not only been reflecting on what this change means for children and young people, but by harnessing the evidence and our expertise, we have identified five ways to turn government rhetoric on prevention into reality.

The AI revolution in children's services - what to consider

AI is all around us, from text prediction in WhatsApp to generating all kinds of things via ChatGPT and other such tools. It's certainly not going away and is playing a significant role in not just our lives but the lives of children and families. So, what does this mean for AI in the youth sector? And what could it do for your work and organisation? Dartington Service Design Lab has been at the forefront of progressive applications of research for over fifty years, and we’re intrigued by the advances in artificial intelligence (AI), which is already changing the way we develop, deliver and evaluate services for children, young people and families – bringing a wealth of opportunities and challenges to navigate.

Passing the baton of systems change

Throughout our partnership with Inclusion as Prevention we’ve engaged with 98 young people to design and improve services, and early intervention for young people with experience of the justice system. It is estimated that a further 300 also participated through surveys and attending workshops. We’ve tackled challenges, overcome barriers, and learned together as a team to understand the system in South Lanarkshire, to ensure young people aren’t just supported when they enter the justice system, but that the services are there to prevent them from doing so.

Our Learning with PEDAL: Using a Rapid-cycle design and testing to develop the “Playtime with Books” programme

Dartington Service Design Lab partnered with University of Cambridge Centre for Research in Play in Education Development and Learning (PEDAL) to develop new virtual ways to support parents and children to engage in book sharing, which has traditionally been done face-to-face . We are now releasing the final report from this work and sharing our learning for others to put into practice.

Building systems change initiatives into practice

This blog is the first in our series on systems thinking. In this blog we explore one of the systems dynamics tools we use called goal-gap structures to help us understand people’s different motivations for change. We will be launching a systems training programme this autumn where you can learn more about these approaches!

Hard won lessons: A decade review bringing about systemic change in children's services

At the Lab, we’ve been developing and refining our approach to facilitating systemic change, by generating and integrating diverse evidence of what children and young people need and want. We have had varying degrees of success. We’re releasing our report from the Early Action Project in Renfrewshire to both reflect on our experiences of trying to bring about systemic change in children’s services and encourage others to learn from our approach, to support the long-term sustainability of systems change that is both wanted and needed.

News, Publications, ReflectionBLOG16 August 2023Kate, systems change, Early Action, Rachel Lily, Kate Tobin, Scotland, Renfrewshire

Incorporating youth voice into systems change in South Lanarkshire

Over the last five years we have been working to change the systems of support for young people who come into conflict with law in Scotland. We’ve been doing that through co-production with young people to re-imagine the kinds of supports that help keep them included in their communities and in the supports on offer to them. Too often young people are excluded from systems of support when they come into conflict with the law. This project fundamentally reframes the work of prevention and early intervention to be young-person centred and inclusive of their diverse experiences and needs.

Discovering what matters to communities when researching mental health

This Mental Health Awareness Week we’re exploring our role as researchers and designers in projects that centre mental health and wellbeing for young people. We are particularly curious about how we establish the right conditions for exploring these issues with our partners in the work – and how we can best share our lessons with others.

In this blog, we focus on three areas that have become especially important to us at Dartington:

the beginning of the projects and our own standpoint as we begin,
the process of establishing strong relationships that can hold complexity and trust, and
the sustainability and impact of our shared work on mental health.

News, ReflectionBLOG18 May 2023equity, Learning, mental health, research, Design, Catherine-rose, alice, Rachel Lily, Alice Hewson

How co-designing with young people can change your practice - a look at gender-based violence

When I first entered the Inclusion As Prevention project, I thought I would approach it as I would working with any client seeking animation support. The brief was an exciting one, working with an innovative, community-driven project that seeks to support young voices through co-design and produce an animation to educate young people and their families on the topic of domestic abuse and gender-based violence.

The role of culture in the growth of service design

Service Design is a discipline that's yet finding its feet within the charity sector and developing in itself as a whole. The job of a Service Designer is to help organisations understand needs, solve problems and adapt to an ever-changing world. This is only possible in an environment that has its eyes open to learning and its heart ready to act on change based initiatives. Here, Vridhi reflects on this and particularly on the role that culture plays in allowing the practice of Design to grow and mature.

ReflectionBLOG7 November 2022Service Design, Vridhi, Behaviour Change, Service Improvement

Using an Appreciative Inquiry Framework: Bridging ‘what is’ to ‘what could be’

Comic Relief’s Rise and Shine programme funds organisations supporting early childhood development for vulnerable families in the UK and globally. Earlier this year, grantees came together for a day of reflection and learning, facilitated by Dartington Service Design Lab, the Learning Partners for the fund.

The goal of the learning event was to create a space where UK Rise and Shine grantees could reflect on what they’ve learnt to date, to inform their planning for the future as the funding programme nears its conclusion.

Deepening conversations around young men's mental health

This year, World Mental Health Day's leading campaign is to ‘make mental health and wellbeing a global priority’. Wellbeing and mental health is a key feature of the work here at the Lab to improve outcomes for children and young people. NHS digital estimate that 1 in 6 young people have a diagnosable mental illness, with many 5 – 16 year olds reporting experiencing low mood, anxiety and eating disorders.

Last year, we joined forces with the Mental Health Foundation, Black Thrive and Colourful Minds on the “Becoming a Man” (BAM) project, a US-born programme developed by Youth Guidance, aimed at exploring and supporting young men to learn and practice impulse control and emotional regulation, among other social skills. Our job as the evaluators is to establish whether and how BAM might be feasible to deliver in Lambeth, South London.

The mirror, the mentor and the midwife: What makes a good Learning Partner?

As we’ve explored and reflected on Learning Partner contracts, we’ve identified three roles that a Learning Partner takes; The mirror, the mentor and the midwife. Each role blends the “learning for” and “learning with” elements that we described previously, and in our experience, Learning Partners need to be confident shifting between the three as learning needs and capacity changes.

Tackling racism in social research and design: Why the glacial pace of change?

This is a blog about anti-racism, and the actions and commitments we are taking at Dartington Service Design Lab to address it.

ReflectionBLOG16 June 2021resilience, Evidence, evaluation, Tim, Racism, Anti-racism, inequality, structural racism, research, Design

Re-use and repair: Small but mighty steps for practitioners to reach families remotely

In January 2021, we were funded by Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Reponse to run a 12-week research and design project focused on reaching families remotely, in partnership with five charity partners from across the country. The whole research and design process culminated in the ‘9 steps for reaching families remotely’ - services and practitioners struggling to reach and engage with digitally excluded people.

Getting Learning Partnerships right – the building blocks

In our last blog, we looked at the motivations behind Learning Partnerships. In this one we examine some of the conditions we think are necessary for success – building on our experience, and that of our partners at Renaisi, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. In particular, we look at taking time to set the project up, develop consensus about aims and being explicit about creating the conditions for learning to happen and be acted upon.

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