How co-production delivers results

• Co-production with children and young people

• Collaboration with system partners

• Community-based approach

Background

Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust (Humber Teaching) provides integrated healthcare services to 765,000 people across rural, coastal and inner-city areas. The trust serves a diverse population with varying degrees of affluence and deprivation across local communities.

The trust employs approximately 3,600 staff working across 79 sites, spanning a wide geography. It provides a range of services including: community and therapy services, primary care, community and inpatient mental health services, learning disability services, healthy lifestyle support and addiction services. It also provides specialist services and support for children and their families who are experiencing emotional or mental health difficulties.

Over the past few years, Humber Teaching has seen an increase in demand for children and young people’s services, due to the long term impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic alongside an overall increase in demand for services. Trust leaders are particularly concerned about the demand for mental health services and are working in new and innovative ways to bring down waiting lists and times by providing more support to CYP in the community.

Safe Space service

In partnership with the charity East Yorkshire Mind, Humber Teaching’s children and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) has developed and commissioned a Safe Space service which supports children and young people who would benefit from ‘an overnight safe place of sanctuary’ (Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust, 2025) following a mental health crisis assessment or incident (via referral from their crisis team). The service, which supports young people aged 13 to 18, runs from 8pm-8am seven days a week and provides a safe, calm and welcoming environment for a child and their family or carer to access support and expertise when they need it most. The Safe Space is delivered by the local Mind charity, who staff the service.

Safe Space was originally established in response to rising demand for mental health services following the pandemic. Humber Teaching realised more and more children and young people were being admitted into mental health inpatient settings, and were struggling to be discharged, because they could not access services in the community. To redress this, the trust developed Safe Space as an alternative crisis support service in the community, reducing the number of unnecessary inpatient admissions. This supports better outcomes for children and young people who would prefer to be supported in the community (closer to their home and everyday life) and alleviates pressure from wider health services, by preventing escalation.

Looking ahead, the trust is reviewing the offer to include children and young people with neurodiversity and young people with a mental health condition who do not present in crisis. This would be used to produce safety plans and support young people who present with behavioural difficulties.

Intensive home treatment intervention

In some cases, young people who access the Safe Space service require additional support on a longer-term basis, which is delivered via the CAMHS intensive home treatment service – which is available for young people for four to 12 weeks. This is delivered via a multi-disciplinary team working closely with services outside of CAMHS that are already supporting the young person, such as their school or social services.

The driving principle for Humber Teaching is to provide care for children and young people in the community where possible. Although there may be times when an inpatient admission is necessary, for the most part, providing support in people’s home environment is preferable. The intensive home treatment service therefore helps support people to stay independent and well at home, reducing the risk of admission and readmission.

The impact of providing more care in the community

Safe Space has successfully been used as an intervention following a crisis or as a planned intervention as part of the Intensive Home Treatment offer for 31 young people between Jan 24 and Dec 24.  According to leaders at Humber Teaching, often just having this service as a possible intervention and a safety net is enough to prevent crisis for some young people.

It has prevented admissions to inpatient CAMHS, diverted young people from the Section 136 Suite (Rethink Mental Illness, 2025) and the local emergency department, alleviating pressure and helping wider services to continue to support young people in their community. This success has encouraged the trust to widen the access criteria to enable the same support to be offered via our planned and neurodiversity services.

The power of co-production

Engagement with children and young people is a key priority for leaders and clinicians at Humber Teaching. Over the past two years, the trust has established the Humber Youth Action Group (HYAG) which meets virtually every three weeks (Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust, 2025). It is made up of approximately 35 children and young people with lived experience, many of whom have previously used the trust’s mental health services. Members of the group are consulted on a variety of programmes from service innovations and quality improvement programmes to recruitment panels and sitting in on board meetings. Where possible, young people are linked with projects they are interested in, to help support and co-design the services to best meet the needs of local people. Involvement also benefits young people’s future prospects – some former HYAG members have gone on to be employed by the trust.

Leaders at Humber Teaching believe engaging with young people brings invaluable benefits, both for the services they deliver and for the confidence of the group’s members. To establish a reciprocal relationship with HYAG and compensate individuals for the invaluable insights they provide, the trust has secured funding to provide training and support to members, with a comprehensive introductory pack, and will cover expenses for face to face meetings.

Humber Teaching recently employed two young people as experts by experience to support with their website design project. As part of this, HYAG co-designed the trust’s CAMHS website to bring together all services into one place in a way that is accessible to children, young people and their families and carers. They developed and voiced animations to describe services and provided a virtual tour of the trust so other children and young people can know what to expect when they attend appointments.

Testimonial from member of HYAG

The HYAG has enabled me to use my experiences of accessing and receiving support from NHS services to improve them for others. I was signposted to the HYAG by my CAMHS worker and am so glad that I decided to become a member, not only to create social change, but also to meet so many other amazing young people from the Humber region. The opportunity to share my experiences and have my voice be valued by NHS professionals makes me feel like I matter and am making a difference. I feel so proud to be able to use the challenges I have faced during my time with NHS services to ensure others have the most supportive experiences possible and receive the help they need.

My most memorable experience is talking at the launch event of the Humber Connect website last October. I had the opportunity to share a small part of my story with around 100 NHS staff and explain why the website was so important to me. It was a moment I never would have imagined myself doing a few years ago when I first started struggling
with anxiety and something I only had the chance to do because of my involvement in the group. Recording a voice over for the eating disorder service was also an incredibly meaningful experience given the time I have spent as a service user.

The team are also amazing at matching HYAG members to relevant projects – I had the opportunity to work as an expert by experience on a health inequalities project, developing my knowledge on social issues which affect healthcare, something directly related to the social and political sciences degree I am planning to study from September.