Teenager turns her life around thanks to support from Nottinghamshire's mental health services

This week (February 7, to 13) is Children’s Mental Health Week and the theme is about growing together and using challenges and setbacks to help us grow.

Chelsea Bennett has shared her experience and told how she used volunteering to help turn her life around with the support from Nottinghamshire Healthcare’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).

She said: “I was a typical anxious teenager who wouldn’t interact at school or college. I was initially referred to the School Nurse but as my issues got more complex and I was self-harming, I was referred to the Child and Adult Mental Health Services (CAMHS) under the Crisis Team. It was when I met Natalie, my care-coordinator that my life turned around.

“I was asked to be a volunteer in the garden group where I worked on a garden shed project with another young person. The shed, at the back of the CAMHS base on Lindsay Close in Mansfield, was only used for storage and we converted it into an outdoor therapy room for young people who struggle to sit in the CAMHS clinic. This involvement really helped me to express myself and learn how to approach certain situations.

“I was also asked to get involved in altering the waiting area in Lindsay Close which young people and parents/carers had said was gloomy and intimidating with medical posters on the wall and felt too much like a doctor’s waiting room, which caused negative emotions.

“As the work progressed, I came out of my shell a bit more. Having that sort of focus, knowing it was for a good reason, and that it was going to improve my experience and having other young people there in the same situation really helped.

"Natalie asked if I wanted to join the summer group as volunteer. I think that was a key breakthrough moment for me as I was joining in a volunteering role and not just as a young person attending the group. Seeing the positive feedback from others, like young people and clinicians really boosted my self-esteem.

“My confidence began to grow; my anxiety was in the back of my mind and my mindset was changing which helped with the anxiety and low mood. It solidified that I could do it and everything in the world wasn’t bad.

“Someone like me, who has been through it and is still going through it to an extent, is like a living miracle. I didn’t plan on making it to 16, so to have an intervention that I could take part in within the service is mind blowing and what it can do for you.

“I haven’t had a self-harm attempt for over a year. To turn myself around from how I was for years, to now. I wouldn’t recognise myself.”

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