We are the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, or ACAMH for short. And this is ACAMH learn. Picture a damp Sunday evening in the heart of the city. A handful of volunteer youth workers ventured out with nothing more than flasks of hot chocolate and open minds and open questions. These early conversations laid the foundation for a youth community, a place not defined by the rules of adult authority, but by trust, by shared space, and the chance for every voice to shape what happens next. Fast forward to today. In this episode of Mind The Kids Home From Home co-designing trauma informed spaces with young people. In the podcast, we explore what happens when the values of ownership, choice, and genuine collaboration a place at the centre of mental health practise. Will take on a journey that starts not only with statistics, but also with stories, stories of young people searching for a place where they belong and find it in the form of not in the form of assessment rooms, but through creative partnerships and through the power of community. So let's start at the end. Here's Charis Robertson taking a look around the finished project. Welcome to Hot Chocolate Trust, a grassroots youth organisation in Dundee, Scotland. For over 20 years, young people have been hanging out on the grass just behind, and through those red doors. And together with a dedicated long-term team of youth workers, they have been creating an incredible and quirky and creative and colourful alternative beautiful community. This article features the case study of Home From Home, a project undertaken by Hot Chocolate Trust with designers, and psychologists, and youth workers, and a team of 100 co-designers. Young people from the community. The project brief was to redesign the internal space through the lens of trauma-informed practise, and to learn as much as we could through the process. The case study details the learning and the process. But first, we thought we would whet your appetite by giving you a tour of the space. So welcome to Home From Home. [MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Mark Tebbs, I'm your host for today. I've spent my whole career working in mental health, from frontline service delivery, to director of mental health commissioning. I'm currently chief exec of a small charity. I'm really delighted to be hosting this podcast, especially on this topic, as it chimes with me, because of how the community and voluntary sector can come together to play a vital role in children and young people's well-being. I'm joined by Charis Robertson, Gary Kennedy, Linsey McIntosh, and Anne McKenney, a team who brought together youth work, architectural design, psychology, lived experience to transform not just physical spaces, but the entire idea of what support can look like and feel like for young people. This paper was recently published in ACAMH child and adolescent mental health journal. Through this conversation, we'll uncover how co-design gave young people the casting vote at every step, from funding decisions, to painting their own hubs for quiet reflection or creative energy. We'll discuss the challenges of listening, adapting, letting go of assumptions, as well as the profound sense of pride and trust that came when young people feel truly seen. Whether you're a clinician, designer, policymaker, or simply passionate about young people's well-being, I hope this episode sparks new ways of thinking about partnership, environments, and the small moments that can change a life. If you find meaning in these stories, please share, review, and help us spread the word about what's possible when we put community at the heart of mental health. Harris, Gary, Linsey and Anne, it's great to have you with us and really, really loved the paper and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. It's great to be here, too. Thank you for having us. Look, let's start with some introductions. Maybe Charis you could start us off. Sure, my name is Charis Robertson. I am currently a lecturer in a community development and youth work at the University of Dundee, and until recently, I was the assistant director of Hot Chocolate Trust in Dundee, and I was the project lead for Home From Home, which is the focus of this particular paper. Hi, yes, I'm Anne McKenney. I'm a consultant, forensic and clinical psychologist. I've worked independently for the last eight years, but up until then worked extensively in the NHS, I had a special interest in trauma informed work for decades now. And Gary. Hi, Mark, my name is Gary Kennedy. I work in Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, and I also represent Kennedy Twaddle, which is an architectural practise with offices in London and Dundee. Brilliant. Welcome. And Linsey. Hi, Mark, I'm Linsey McIntosh. I am a designer. My background is in spatial design, but I now focus on co-designing as an approach to design projects. I am also similar to Gary in that I'm also a lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at the University of Dundee. So this project sounds absolutely amazing. I think Charis you got the job of scene setting and letting listeners know a little bit about what the project is and maybe how it came about. Yeah, we'd love to. Hot Chocolate Trust is a grassroots youth work organisation that is based right in the smack bang centre of Dundee. And there's a big grassy area in the city centre where for decades the alternative culture young people have been hanging out. So dress in black piercings, skateboarding, smoking weeds, folks that maybe have felt historically that they have not belonged in their own communities, in their own schools and colleges and homes, and they've gravitated into the city centre and have found one another. And for nearly 25 years, Hot Chocolate has been working with that community, although it's broadened out. It's not just the goths and the emos and the monsters anymore. It's a bit more diverse than that these days. But for 25 years, Hot Chocolate has been growing a community with these young people that started off with a cup of hot chocolate on a cold, wet November evening with a group of volunteer youth workers from the church that was next to the grass. Going out onto the grass, meeting these young people, saying, who are you? What are your stories? Is there something that we could do together? Can we dream something together? Can we create something together? And slowly but surely, this community was formed and trust was established, actually from young people that weren't very comfortable with adults, with authority. And because these were younger youth work volunteers. There was actually a bit of rapport that was built quite quickly. And over time the question then became, if you had some space within the building, what would you want to do with it? And the response was, well, we're in bands, can we come and practise. And there was a surreal early period where a punk and thrash and screamo and metal bands were practicing in the sanctuary of the steeple church, which is where Hot Chocolate is based. And really that premise that ethos has been a constant throughout. Who are you? What are your stories? What can we do together? Now, fast forward 20 years to when this project began and a Hot Chocolate had taken over quite a lot of space. It's a huge cathedral looking like building in the city centre. Lots of space. But it wasn't quite the right space. It wasn't configured the way that the young people were really wanting and needing. And so we had been exploring trauma-informed practise for a long time, and had been one of our long term partners around that. We'd been working with Gary and Linsey a little bit and some other projects, and an opportunity came about to apply for some money to actually put this into practise and to take this seriously. So we applied and it was 200,000 pounds initially to redesign the space with the young people as co-designers through the lens of trauma-informed practise. And what happened over the next four years was so interesting and important and innovative and impactful, that it became a no brainer that we wanted to get the learning out there. And so when we saw the special edition for the journal around trauma informed and physical environment we thought, this is such a good fit. And so we pulled something together around a case study rather than it's not about statistics, and it's not about the rigour of scientific method, but it's something very real, very tangible. And we have thoroughly enjoyed working on it. So that's a bit of a waffle but-- Great. Yeah Great intro. So it sounds like it was quite organic from the get go. It was really about meeting young people where they were and finding out what their needs were. So and how did the Hot Chocolate Trust ethos shape this project? Ownership, ownership, ownership. From day one, the young people have had the casting vote and primary say about the shape and the feel and the look and the smell of what happens in the building. So that was woven all the way through this project. At every stage from writing the funding application, to going-- like we took young people. Do you remember Gary and Linsey when we went down to Edinburgh to explore with the potential funders. We took young people down to be part of those initial conversations. At every single stage, the young people were contributing their ideas. Feeding back their thoughts and their comments around the designs and around the methods. So yeah, ownership is key. It sounds like you've genuinely ensure that co-production has happened throughout the project. So I'm just wondering, how did you make sure that value and that approach was embedded in everything you did? I think you have to ensure that people are engaged with the themes and questions you're trying to discuss with them, and we try to make that quite hands on. So we make bespoke tools or props. And the approach we use is called we've coined the phrase prop tastic. So depending on what question or scenario we're trying to create, we manufacture something physical that works as a go to. Some, it's almost like a distraction technique where hopefully the young people are engaged in something else rather than the direct question, because that can be just a wee bit too maybe ominous. So if we can create something where it's a bit more fun to engage, I think the back chat or just how we negotiate, getting really quality information out of them becomes just that wee bit more easier and also genuine. Amazing. I was just going to say as well that I think feeding back throughout the process is really, really important. So that there's not some surprise design at the end that nobody agreed to. So throughout the co-design process, after running a workshop or a series of workshops, Gary and I would always go away and analyse all that information that we'd collated from the young people, and we'd distill it down and repackage it up as a presentation. And before the next session, we would show that back to them to make sure that we were hearing them right and that we hadn't overlooked something. And they had the opportunity to let us know if there was something they wanted changed or added. And I think that was crucial, that sort of constant dialogue throughout the co-design process. If I could just add a couple of things. This project was a bit of a gift in terms of involvement from the young people and their sense of ownership and engagement. It's not difficult within Hot Chocolate anyway, because they really care about it as a space and as a community. But the fact that we actually had the money up front. So it was literally we have this money, what are we going to do with this. This is really going to happen. It meant that it was quite an easy starting point, and one of the mantras that came up strongly through the project and is the opening of the article, actually is a description that a young person gave that it feels-- hot chocolate works because it feels like a teenager's bedroom. So it's constant, it's messy, and it's scruffy, and it's constantly reimagined. There's memories on the wall. We get to make our mark. We get to stamp our identity. We get to express ourselves. And that was the ethos that Gary and Linsey brought as the designers to engage the young people. And it was yeah, it was a magical process. If I can add something there. Yeah, I think, from what we know of the young people, the young people who are involved with Hot Chocolate, they'd often had contact with social services, had difficulties in education. So often the relationships with authority are very, very difficult. And they resist any intervention on the part of professionals or even adults in any way. So I think coming at the point of view and actually genuinely listening to them the way that Gary and Linsey did, and Charis and her team did for a long time, it was quite a change, because so often children have-- and young people have things done to them by authorities who decide what's better for them. And I think the difference here, and this is where I suppose it's central to the trauma informed ethos, is that actually they were front and centre of the design and their needs were listened to and not in a patronising. I mean, I've been involved in projects before where we've designed hospitals, and 20 years ago, I was involved in design of a secure unit. And patients weren't considered. It was the experts who knew what was needed. And I think this is central to how this was done, but also to how truly trauma informed practise should be done. Yeah, so I guess it's difficult to generalise, but I'm just wondering whether you could describe what some of those needs and issues were. What was happening in Dundee at that time? A little bit about the cultures and subcultures that you're working with. Yeah, the community of Hot Chocolate is a quite large and quite varied. So in any given year, there's probably between 300 and 400 young people that are involved from the age of 12, 13 up to 21, so. And with all the range of the interests, and the ambitions, and the hobbies, and the challenges, and the struggles, and the problems, and there's a whole melting pot of things. And the space at that point there was maybe four or five key spaces. But what the young people predominantly were seeing was that they wanted more small spaces, more cosy, more private spaces for de-escalation, almost if they're coming in feeling in a heightened state. They wanted quiet spaces to calm and to be. And at the same time, some others were saying, well, actually when we come in heightened and stressed, what we want is to play football and we want to get it out and we want-- and others were saying, and actually we want to express ourselves and we want to draw. And that's the best way of us finding therapy with a small tea. So we had some of those spaces, but we knew that they could be more. And so actually, one of the beautiful things that Gary and Linsey worked with was the young people was creating a whole series of beach huts. So I think there's maybe 8 or 9 new beach huts of different sizes of different shapes. A couple are for storage, granted, but the rest are for the young people to use however they want, and they can reimagine them as often and as frequently as they want. So that led itself to more small, intimate, calming spaces, but calming as defined by the young people. And our experience in the run up to this was that there's not much research that's been done in this area. There's quite a lot of assumptions that had been made from professional, tertiary educated, middle class professional types that would see a calming space would be pastel colours, would have lots of windows, a would have motivational posters on the wall. Whereas we're like, well, we work with young people that want to build a shed and paint it black inside and have a couple of fairy lights. Culturally, the motivational posters and pastel colours is not going to work for this lot. So let's trust them that they're going to know what is the best way for them to de-escalate. And that is also about choice. One of the foundational things of trauma-informed practise is giving choice. Anne is there anything else that you would like to come in there? I think there is that sense that I think that we talk a lot in trauma-informed practise about our client group trusting us. But I think it was also having us, and having trust in them and understanding that actually they have their own views and that they are no less valid, because they may have had some difficulties throughout their lives. That actually, often that makes it more valid because they understand themselves. And I think the concept of them self-soothing-- I think that again, lots of people who've they've had early adversity have not learned how to self-soothe. So to give them options for how they could do that, they could try something out. Not, you have to sit-in the corner and meditate, or you have to go out for a run. It's the sense that there's all these various options that are available, and you can try and you can decide that's not for you. Other things are for you. I'm just thinking about the actual kind of methodologies. So you took an action research approach, I believe. So how did you gather data and what was the research design like? The way we approached it with the young people was really hands on. Gary mentioned earlier that prop tastic approach. So we collected information and worked with the young people to, I guess, unlock their aspirations through these large scale props. So for example, one evening we did over the course of three nights it was called a building project. And we asked young people their thoughts around space and anxiety and stress levels, and prompted them with questions. And they responded on these large scale, what we call building boards, which were essentially kind of cardboard pieces at really large scale that slotted into one another. And they could respond using a language of spray paint and stencils, because through engaging with the youth workers, we knew that would really appeal to the young people and using banks of images and things like that. So over the course of three nights, we built up this really large scale structure that filled the Sports Hall together, which represented all their thoughts and feelings towards this quite sensitive subject area. So it's really accessible and visible and interactive for everybody that's involved. Another approach that we used was the mood board. So a double-sided board, really large scale again series of pegs that you can slot cards onto. And this is where we took the themes that had come out from the building board session. There was 12 themes, things like comfort a cosy. So that was the young people telling us that they really wanted spaces that enveloped them. It made them feel protected and safe, or I think another one was a right laugh. So spaces that are playful, they have a sense of quirkiness or joyfulness to them. But then we had to distill all these themes down. There were so many to work with. And so that's where we asked young people to imagine what these might look like if they were to draw them or to write about them, or to take Polaroid photographs of something that they'd seen, or again, using an image bank as a starting point to help them imagine different scenarios and possibilities. And I think that sort of flexibility of choice of response was really great, because it just gave people different ways into the project, and they could find a way that was comfortable for them to respond. And we ended up distilling that down into three main themes, which you can see in the actual spatial design itself now. So you've got forest, identity space, and worlds within worlds, which I'm sure will expand on at some point. But yeah, so it's really hands on. It's quite physical. It's accessible. It's inclusive. It's visually exciting as well. The way that we approached it with them. So it sounds like you used a real variety of different engagement tools I guess. Were there different challenges trying to engage with different people. People-- still some people that are reluctant to get involved? I think one of the most interesting challenges came on the very first session, and we refer to it as the pancake approach now because of what happened. So one of the first engagement sessions we were running in the whole of Hot Chocolate Trust in an open session. So there was lots of different things going on that evening, and we were trying to film this session to get funding for the project, basically. And on reflection and looking back, Gary and I had over structured it and quite had a quite rigid timeline of what we wanted to achieve during that session. And we had a group of young people and they're around and they're getting involved, but all it took was for somebody to come out of the kitchen and shout, who wants to make pancakes. And of course, everybody wanted to do that. And the everybody disappeared immediately. And we lost our audience. And we call it the pancake approach now, because we realise we have to make it more flexible and adaptable and respond to what's happening in the moment. And Charis and the rest of the youth work team were really brilliant in that moment and going, right, OK, they're not coming to us. We need to take it to them. And like literally moving. We had a model of the building, which we were using as an engagement prop. And we moved that to the front door where all the interaction happens and caught people's responses before they left. But yeah, our whole approach to working with the young people came from that one pancake moment at the very beginning. Yes, it's a massive learning for us. That was, well, so we knew that we had to be adaptable and more on the hoof and people-- be prepared for people to come in and go, nah, I don't think so, and go away and maybe reappear. But it was all part of building this organic team where people could pop in and out. So not everyone came along, new faces would arrive. But with our job was to explain and do that feedforward, feedback as much as we could just to make sure everyone understood the opportunity. Not only enjoying the team and contributing to a design, but to unlock the special potential within this voluminous space and understand that there were lots of spaces in the church building that could totally be unlocked and used. Yes, and to me there's something as well about from all of our points of view, is that we often go in with this label and sense of identity as to who we are. I'm a psychologist guy, and [INAUDIBLE] designers [INAUDIBLE] as a community and service manager. And actually have to leave all that behind. And I think that was particularly important in my situation, because psychologists are either universally, hated or obsessed with you don't get a neutral response when you go in saying you're a psychologist. So for me, the thing was going in and just leaving that all behind. Keeping that in my head but not having that because I knew it would be a barrier. And I think for so-- for what to me-- what Gary and Linsey were experiencing was that sense of, OK, we have this training, we have our experience that we know how this thing is normally done. But I actually have to leave that behind. You have to be prepared to go into areas that can feel a little bit risky, because they're not familiar. And I think it's about having that face in one in the organisation that he was dealing with, but also in one another to actually this will work out OK. You have to take that a bit of a chance, I think I think at the heart of it, it's not rocket science stuff, is it? It's about relationship. And I had many a conversation with Gary and Linsey over the past few years around their approach and their technique and Gary earlier on, like the first response that he gave to your question mark was about the props. And the props that Gary and Linsey brought were exceptional and were extraordinary. And I think made the young people feel valued and extraordinary as a result. And I think that really matters. But in my opinion, and this is where we have talked a little bit over the years. I think the props are secondary to Gary and Linsey's extremely good interpersonal skills, and the fact that they build rapport and they can have a laugh and they can read the room and they can. They're humble and they can say, oh, this isn't working. What's going to happen now. And I think there was something quite interesting about the four of us as part of the core team of this was we had very overlapping professional values and approaches. And I think a-- so trauma-informed practise being about safety and trust and empowerment and choice and collaboration, well, that sounds very design principles. When they're done well, it's with not for it's getting the ideas. It's considering people to be experts of their own experience. Well that sounds very similar to good youth work approaches. So the overlap between our professional expertise and our personalities and our characters, I think, worked quite well. And that falls under the overall frame you'd asked about. Why did we choose action research? Well, action research is quite common in youth and community work because it's about there's a problem to be solved and there's knowledge to be generated. Let's link those things up. And let's ask the people who are affected by that problem what the solutions are. And then let's actually do something about it. So again, I think the collaboration of psychology and design and youth work really lent itself well to an action research approach with a decent amount of resource behind it to say we can come up with solutions to this and we will together. Yeah, you said it's not rocket science, but it also still feels like it's quite rare that bringing together of minds and disciplines to work in that way still feels like it's not common practise. OK, it'd be really good to dive into what you found through that research process. What were the key learnings as you went through this journey? Sure I mean, we all had different learnings from our different professional disciplines, actually. So it might be that we could all say something on this. But from a youth and community work point of view, I think a big piece of learning and confirmation in terms of practise is about power. So it's not rocket science, but it's rare. Well, it absolutely is rare. And I think that's unfortunately, because power is too often held by the adults in the room, or the professionals in the room, or the perceived experts, rather than giving the space and giving the trust to the people that actually are affected by these things. So really being deliberate about the power dynamics and putting your money where your mouth is and not ticking boxes and then over-- overturning the decisions that the young people have made further down the line, the young people really felt heard, they really felt respected, and their ideas were implemented. And even when things had to change, when we had to move from the first design to the second design without the foundational work. And in some ways, it was a bit more modest. But the young people looked at it and said, do you know what. We actually think that's even better. So for them to still have that power and the control over what designs look like and what colour schemes, and what spaces and shapes and sizes and all of that power really matters. I think another one is around the co-design process. So co-design is a real buzzword and buzz phrase at the moment. And what we were learning through it is that co-design is most beneficial to the people that are involved in the co-design process. So those who have stamped their mark on it and have made some of the decisions about the space, they will feel real pride over it. They will feel real ownership of it. But the next generation won't feel the same way, because they have not been involved in those conversations and those decisions. So is there a way to deliberately build into the project in an ongoing way? Co-design. So what Hot Chocolate came up with is a little spin off thing was something called Jabba the Hutt's a good Star Wars reference there for anyone that is not familiar. And this was the concept that the huts that were built would be repainted every six months for the next three years and ongoing when you find more money. So the co-design process is then an ongoing one, and is not just the original 100 or so young people that were involved in the big meaty home for home project. So that was really interesting. And the final thing I think from our point of view in Hot Chocolate was around the social justice element of it and some of the trauma-informed practise. A narrative that there is in Scotland. And it's quite a contested thing in youth and community work, because trauma-informed practise is often framed as quite an individualistic thing, can be critiqued as quite reductionist and not really paying enough attention to some of the wider systems and structures that actually create injustice, create trauma in the first place, and youth and community work. It cares a lot about the social justice and the wider element. But rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater and saying, well, trauma-informed practise, there's nothing to it because it's all individualised, that's not a helpful stance because there's so much that is good within that as well. But what might that look like in a collaborative context? What might that look like in a community context? And again, and just got that from Hot Chocolate's point of view and bringing her perspective as such an experienced psychologist and to say, well, community-based psychology actually is really important and brings societal resilience and healing and therapy with a small tea that clinical practise can't necessarily. So that was some of the learning from youth and community work perspective. Anne did you want to follow on from that? Yeah. I think that there is a lot of focus in and I think we talk a lot about trauma nowadays, and I think it's-- we sometimes it becomes a term that's overused. And I think what we're talking about with this particular group of people, of young people were really quite extreme adversity at times and quite difficult mental health difficulties. And I think we've always traditionally thought it's got to involve sitting down in a one-to-one context, doing extensive therapy with somebody like myself. But I think what Hot Chocolate is showed, and what this project showed was that actually lots of that healing process, if you like-- can happen simply by engaging young people and asking them what they want, giving them-- offering them options for how they learn, the skills that we need to deal with adversity, whether it's past or present or future. So I think there's something about mobilising people to find their own way to marshal their own reserves without necessarily having to go and sit down often a very uncomfortable setting with somebody like myself, which feels like it's not normal. Whereas actually having relationships in an environment that facilitates people to feel safe, to feel trusted, to feel that they're empowered, all those principles we talk about that will often do much more to get people on a process of recovering from whatever difficulties they've had than having to sit down in a difficult context, which often isn't realistic. It's not normal to sit down in front of somebody like myself and talk about your deepest, darkest secrets for an hour a week. It's much more normal to be engaging with your peers, with adults who support you, to have that environment that facilitates a sense that not only can we facilitate you moving on from your difficulties, but we can actually make you more than your trauma. That actually this is not just about seeing a clinician. This is about coming in, playing music, sitting around with your mates. All of these things actually create a sense that actually that might have been part of your life, but doesn't have to be all of it. And it doesn't have to be part of your future. I love that so much. And I think there's such a sense of that CAMHS referrals somehow hold the answer. That panacea or their response to children and young people's mental health needs. And actually, I think what you're describing there feels much more holistic and much more likely to create a long-lasting resilience in a more natural environment. So it really resonates with me. Gary, what was your key learnings from the work? Well, I think from a special point of view, myself and Linsey really did set the young people a challenge of reaching for the stars when it was what could it be. You think blank spatial canvas. Got all of this room. What would we like to do to fill it. Knowing in the background that there was a budget and we couldn't use all the space, but we wanted to just break ice and just have a real free for all and create that team, create an energy. So when it came to deciding what themes were relevant we talked about feels good comfort, all of these things was 12 of them. We knew we had to carefully strategically distill this down to three. So they were, as Linsey said earlier, a dentist-based, worlds within worlds, and forest. Now, that was really interesting from our learning as to what themes actually were important. These spaces needed to be adaptable. People needed to have a sense of ownership and feel empowered designing and building it, because we had to go through certain things like planning and building warrants. And it was a building site for quite a while, and we tried to keep the young people engaged with that, and even to a point of view where these are life skills that you could dip into going forward. Who does-- what does an architect do? What does an interior designer do? What does a joiner do? What does a painter and decorator do? Who's that guy with the scaffolding? Why's he got a hard hat on? There's all of this there's rich learning in the process. But when it comes to the themes, a forest, for example, was I need to have something that was quiet natural. So letting light back into the building was a key thing by taking this huge wall out that was blocking up the South facing stained glass window, and letting the sunlight just flood through the space like it was designed for ecclesiastical space, huge but yet the main connection to outside had been blocked up for years. So that was like, right, get that out for a start. And again, that was young people who made that decision. A dentist space is the idea of personality, changeable space to put your tag on it. And that worlds within worlds just the idea of outwith yourself a place to go and dream. So it all boiled down to these three essential themes, but obviously these need to be put into a vessel that people work, and play, and socialising, yeah. Linsey did you want to add anything there? Yeah, I think just how important it is to make sure that the co-design process is genuine. I think Charis spoke about this earlier. The word co-design gets used a lot, and it means a lot of different things to different people. I think you see it done quite often in a tokenistic way. It looks good on the surface, but-- and maybe ideas have been overridden with others at the end. And that just the whole thing breaks down when that happens. There's absolutely no point in doing that in the first place. So I think from doing this project, we just really-- Gary and I pride ourselves on trying to make that process as genuine as possible. Now, I'm making sure that every single person who has been involved in that project can see a bit of themselves in it at the end, and to be able to say, I did that and have that feeling of pride and excitement and being able to share that positive story, of what they've achieved as being a part of this amazing co-design team. I think for one other thing for me was this, I mean, as a psychologist you're trained to work in multidisciplinary teams, but that's usually nursing, [INAUDIBLE] psychiatry. It's never up favours up to my point in my career, which has been quite long, and it has never been with people who come from an architectural and design point of view. And that was absolutely fantastic. I mean, I really-- and you're right, it doesn't come down to discipline. It comes down to that-- those relationships. So we talk about relationships with our young people that were discussed. But it was also very important that we had a relationship between the four of us. And that for me was particularly rewarding and interesting, and I would urge my colleagues to think your multidisciplinary team does not stop at the hospital doors or your clinic doors. It goes on extends beyond that into the community more broadly. I think it's so easy for-- from services to neglect that part to not really invest in the relationship building within teams. It clearly shows within the dynamic in the room. It's yeah, it's very strong. I'm just wondering, how did you collect the personal impact from the children and young people and their involvement. Like, how did you collect or understand the impact it had on them? Through good old fashioned conversations. Hot Chocolate operates through the backbone of it is drop-ins. So two or three times a week the doors would open and anything between 40, 50, 60 young people would come in and use whichever space they want to. And as well as that, there's groups and there's one-to-ones, and there's different kind of creative opportunities. And so myself and some of the other youth workers would be alongside the young people in those spaces, asking the questions, recording little interviews, capturing quotes, inviting some in for more focus group and group discussion things around a-- yeah, the space and the impact that that's having on them. So that was more of the action research new knowledge strand. But Gary and Linsey were doing that in an ongoing way through the spatial redevelopment strand as well. So actually we had two quite rich sources of data and information through conversations from my perspective primarily. And from Gary and Linsey, I think through quite a range of methods as they've already described. But I'll let you guys say more about that. OK, well I guess one of our skills and our discipline is to visualise space. So through model making, collage and sketching, computer graphics, CGI imagery. We would make the spaces and show them the spaces, and show the whole team of spaces on a projector at the start of every session, just to make sure that we were negotiating the right design paths and understanding the core information, translating into a spatial outcome. And again, was such a large space, but to accommodate everything was also quite tricky to and to go through all the regulations. At one stage we were putting new lifts in everything and for wheelchair users. But that's going to be in stage two if we get more funding. So there's an adaptability about the space that needs to be understood. I think you also get a sense of feedback from young people in the way that the space is used. So in the times that I visited Hot Chocolates and it's been constructed with this design, the young people have done the different iterations of the paintings on the front of the beach huts. I have been in on art night, which is open to the public, where Hot Chocolate opened their doors, and they were-- they had art installations within the beach huts upstairs in the balcony. Young people have been playing and performing music or giving presentations on the social steps area. One time the seating area was covered in giant printouts of all the young people's eyes. I think seeing that constant evolution and change of the space, and the interaction with it is a really positive sign of the impact that it's having on the different waves of young people coming through the building as well. So if other people were starting a similar project, what would you suggest? Is there any recommendations, or advice, or contacts you could suggest? Certainly from a Hot Chocolate's point of view, I am no longer with Hot Chocolate, but I am honoured to speak on their behalf. But Hot Chocolate's website that's a hotchocolate.org.uk has a home section, which gives some more context to this project, and the website has contact details in case anyone wants to hear more from them and that community's experience of the project. I am now in a Dundee University, and I'm happy to field any questions from this, and have some time and space within my new role to do so. And my email there is cbrobertson@dundee.ac.uk. Linsey did you have any kind of thoughts or anything you could share? Yeah, I'm really happy for people to get in contact with myself as well, and I'm sure Gary will say the same. You can email me at linsey@linseymcintosh.co.uk. You might need to share that as a link, because lots of different variations of Linsey and McIntosh as well. Mine it's quite easy. It's gary@garykennedy. Gary with one R, gary@garykennedy.co.uk. And yourself Anne? Yes, I'm very happy to be contacted. My email is fcpsyservices@gmail.com. Thank you. It's been such an interesting conversation. It's been really great speaking with you. Is there like a final message you'd like our listeners to take away with. It might be kind of nice to hear from each of you, just whether you've got a final thing that you'd like to say. I think we've been talking about the investment that this type of project takes, but I think it's really worth it, that genuine engagement with people, it gives you an outcome which has much more meaning. It has much more potential to be successful, because of the range of the people that you've involved. It has longevity as well, because you've taken on board those ideas and visions. And I think it just shows the impact that design engagement can have on people's lives, not just through the design of the space, but through being an active participant in a co-design team. Gary, do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share? Yeah, I'd say trust the process, trust each other. I think to hear the young people say that they feel heard, and they feel seen and their ideas have been implemented. They feel proud, and they know that their contribution is going to last for the next generation, and the next generation, and the next generation. That's really profound and important. Anne last word to you. Yeah, I think we look a lot in certainly in CAMHS services and NHS services for evidence-based practise. And I think where you don't have an evidence base, to me this is a case of practise-based evidence, if you like, in that actually, we've found that actually by doing something, it can work. And it doesn't have to don't have to have 3,000 subjects and 27 peer reviewed papers to actually make a point. Sometimes you can just go as long as you've got faith in one another, and an organisation that's backing you and able to prepare to take that chance, then I think things you can produce something that's quite innovative and different and successful, as far as the client group are concerned. Brilliant. Thank you so much for the conversation today. I've really enjoyed it. I think it's been a really informative discussion. So for our listeners, if you've also enjoyed the conversation, then please leave a review and thank you for listening. [MUSIC PLAYING]