Engaging young people on issues relating to mental health can be challenging. Although young people have their own health and wellbeing goals, their perception of these issues can be radically different to those of mental health professionals. The Inspire Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation committed to working in partnership with young people to understand their needs and perspectives on mental health and wellbeing, and to designing and delivering relevant services with those young people. This case study documents how participatory design techniques and principles were used to engage young people who have not used mental health services in designing services that would be relevant to them. Specifically, we will share the methods we used in a series of co-design workshops to engage young people in the redesign of the online service ReachOut.com, and the role participatory design principles, such as play, co-operative and mutual learning and design-by-doing had in making these workshops a success.
