My Work Life as a Young Person’s Wellbeing Coordinator
Meet Mel, our Young Person’s Wellbeing Coordinator in our Open Young Minds Service.
Mel provides confidential support for young people aged 12-21 years old, who have mild to moderate emotional health issues in the Rochdale Borough. She is passionate about empowering young people to develop and grow their skills, knowledge and experiences to enable them to take control of their issues.
I’m Mel and I’ve been working in the Open Young Mind’s Team at Rochdale and District Mind for just over 2 years. The project supports young people aged 12 to 21 with low to moderate mental health needs.
From our first meeting
When a client comes to see me for the first time it is often the first time they have ever spoken about their issues to anyone which is a huge thing for them. Some young people I see, learn and take on board techniques to deal with their mental health issues quite quickly, resulting in them moving forward on their journey pretty fast. This is wonderful to witness. I guess one reason is because the unskillful habits we learn as adults haven’t had the time to become so deeply entrenched in younger people. That said, it’s not always the case and some of our young people are facing huge challenges in their lives which will naturally take longer for them to overcome.
Full of bravery
Young People are a really interesting bunch of people to work with and its great getting to know them along with the stories of their lives. These stories frequently and sadly contain some form of trauma/s. Their bravery in speaking to and trusting someone they’ve only met or barely know is astounding and I take my hat off to them. I doubt very much if I’d have been able to do the same at that age. Getting to know about other things in their lives and also having a laugh with them is good fun. We have the most interesting conversations about so many things. Working with them also helps me to develop professionally and personally and I learn so many things.
The theme of this years’ Children and Young People’s Mental Health Week is find your brave. To be honest I think the people past and present who come and see me already have. Let them be the inspiration for those other young people who are trying to find theirs.
If coming to our Open Young Minds, Peer Mentoring or Youth Group sounds like something you are interested in, you can find more information and the self-referral forms here.
Author: Paula Hall
Posted on: 3rd February 2020
