Our Participation Champions form part of our core team. They are paid for their involvement and provided training and development opportunities to ensure our team has the skills and motivation to engage in activities and use their experiences to contribute towards service improvement.

User-led contract assessment
Working with our Commissioning manager and outreach team, our Participation Champions have developed an assessment process which allows NCEL to learn about the experience of care received by young people admitted to our inpatient units. With an in-depth anonymised interview with service users and a tour of the ward environment, our user-led contract assessment sheds light on the successes and challenges that young people experience with the hospital care team.

A&E Crisis experience
Together with South London Partnership, our Participation Champions hosted a series of focus groups to understand the experiences young people and parents face when attending Accident and Emergency Hospital (A&E) during a mental health crisis episode. We used the findings from this activity to develop an A&E Department Voluntary Self-Assessment Quality Standards Toolkit.

The Standards enable A&E hospital staff to self-assess against measures young people and families believe are vital for providing care. After piloting at test sites, we have shared the Quality Standards across the London Emergency Medicine Children and Young People Network (LEMCYP).