"I love that type of text as it gives you all your options and lays them out in front of you and makes you think which you’d prefer and how finding mental health help won’t be that bad 😊" - Amber, 14. Feedback on the text service.

Our first show & tell on Monday! We had a demo of the text service prototype by Emma, and Cécile talked about what we learned from the research last week. We also had a final interview with Charlie (22), which helped us clarify when and where in the journey we can expect the text service to be most helpful, i.e. at the beginning. Side note - we’ve changed all the names of our participants to protect their identities.

The engineering team finished setting up the infrastructure: drafting the configuration of the development pipeline, finalising and testing the configuration of the pre-production environment, figuring out which web service framework to use for the MVP and starting work on the MVP application.

We also focused on getting the filtering right on the list of services, and getting a prototype ready for next week’s testing with Mental Health Leads in schools. Key questions for this round are: Would a service finder be helpful? If so, which approach would be best - filtering a list, using a question-based format, or the existing advice line? Is there a need for a ‘check this service is right for you’ guide? What are their views on CAMHS vs other provision?

Kat and Beth had a really helpful conversation with the CAMHS and YMM leads, and we have a working group set up and a way forward with some of the knottier questions we’ll need to answer (how big is the list of services we might recommend; what questions do we ask to understand which service is right; how will self-referral work operationally).

The design team spent some time mapping all the services we’ve currently identified into a matrix showing the gaps - e.g. if a 13 year old wants ongoing support for bereavement, do we have somewhere to send them? - and reviewed them with the working group on Thursday.

We also had a retro this week and lots more talk about recruiting participants. We’ve set up a diversity tracker, so we know where to focus our efforts in the next rounds. Current stats are:

Participants	Response
Female	78%
Male	22%
LGBTQ+*	11%
BAME*	0%
LTC/ Disability*	11%

Age	Response
13-16	56%
17-20	6%
21-25	39%

*We don’t collect this data, so we’ve only tracked this if it comes up in the interview.