Lucy Taylor-Mitchinson - brand and marketing manager, YoungMinds Visit the CharityComms website to view slides from past events, see what events we have coming up and to check out what else we do: www.charitycomms.org.uk

1. Name of Presenter
Why teenagers should design your office
by Lucy Taylor-Mitchinson

2. A bit about me and the team
Hello!
• Brand & Marketing Manager at YoungMinds
• We’re a four person team made up of brand,
marketing and design experts
• We lead on projects like #HelloYellow, our
360º Schools’ Community and we’re
developing the YoungMinds’ brand in line
with our new strategy

3. YoungMinds – who are we?
YoungMinds is the UK’s leading charity fighting
for young people’s mental health.
We’re there for parents when they have nowhere
else to turn. We empower professionals on the
front-line of the crisis. We give children and
young people a stronger voice in their future.
And their experiences, which we hear every
single day, drive us to change things for the
better.

4. Our new office

5. Office move
Young people led on:
• Choosing an office – visiting all potential spaces and locations
• Reviewing the reception areas and sign in processes
• Office layout and design – break out spaces and quiet rooms
• Decor and design

10. #HelloYellow

11. #HelloYellow – what is it?
• YoungMinds’ flagship fundraising and awareness campaign held on
WMHD
• People across the UK wear yellow to show young people they’re
not alone with their mental health
• Raised £6k in first year
• 2019 was fourth year and has raised over £300k so far
• More ambitious than ever before with our target, but we also
wanted to put young people at the heart of the campaign

12. What we did differently in 2019
• Overall aim: work with young people to
make sure children and young people
engage with the campaign
• We set up a working group of 10 young
people from our pool of Activists

13. What did this look like?
• We ran workshops at key points throughout the campaign
• The group reviewed campaign messaging
• Created 3 videos, a listening guide for PR, top tips for being a good
listener, a playlist and a Pinterest page
• Provided their own experiences, created case studies
• Acted as media spokespeople
• On the day - held a quiz, took part in Beano’s Lemons for Lolz, held
wellbeing activity for staff and created social media content

16. What went well…
• Better engagement on Instagram than ever before and gained 10k
new Instagram followers
• Video by activist got over 100,000 views on Twitter
• 5% increase in brand awareness in 18-25 year olds
• 7% increase in their likeliness to support us
• Young people loved being involved, especially on the day
• Staff said they’d never properly met the activists before

17. What didn’t go so well…
• Left content creation too late in the process
• Slack group – needed more facilitation
• We didn’t manage expectations well enough - activists had big plans
(like escape room)
• At times young people’s input felt superficial rather than strategic

18. Our 360° Schools’ Community

19. What is it?
• E-newsletter with mental health resources to
a network of 13,000 school staff
• Different themes each time
• Teachers can share examples of good
practice with the community
• Teachers’ Insights Group (TIG) which meets
every other month

20. How we design the community with teachers
• Plan themes for year
• Co-design resources
• Feedback on content for projects and campaigns (Wise Up)
• Case studies
• Review comms messaging for schools

23. “It’s been such a privilege.
And it’s opened my eyes that
my role is actually important.
Thank you!”
“It was a real highlight when the
Ofsted video landed in my inbox
and I had seen it first and fed in
to it! That was a really special
moment for me.”
“The Houses of Commons event – I
really enjoyed coming to that. It’s
been a real privilege to have tapped
into YoungMinds’ agenda as well.”
“There have been several
magic moments! Having
resources to turn to is
amazing, including the
posters we created. I’ve put
one in every classroom and
in our newsletter!”

24. To sum up…

25. When co-designing with beneficiaries:
DO
• Have a clear brief – what do you want to achieve by involving them?
• Think about what your beneficiaries will gain from their
involvement
• Manage expectations and prioritise what you want to achieve in
your time with the group
• Try to make the group as diverse as possible
• Involve them early in the planning process
• Evaluate the design process

26. When co-designing with beneficiaries:
DON’T
• Involve them as a tokenistic gesture
• Decide on the solution/concept before insights
• But, don’t also take a small group’s insights as representative for
their entire demographic
• Forget that ‘design-led’ still needs good facilitation
• Underestimate how much your beneficiaries get out of working
with you

27. Thank you!
Any questions?
Twitter: @lucytaylorm
LinkedIn: Lucy Taylor-Mitchinson