Co-designing Services for Youth With Mental Health Issues: Novel Elicitation Approaches

Experience-based co-design (EBCD) is an innovative, evidence-based approach to health and social system change based on principles of participatory action research, narrative and learning theory, and design thinking. Unique elicitation strategies such as experience mapping, trigger videos, and prototype development are used in EBCD to engage service users and service providers in a collaborative process of identifying touchpoints and solutions to system-level problems. In this article, we present findings from interviewing a purposeful sample of 18 participants (4 youth, 6 service providers, 6 family members, and 2 employers) across three co-design projects designed to address either mental health or employment services for youth (aged 16–24) with mental health issues in one urban center. Through interviewing participants, perceptions were explored relating to three elicitation techniques: creating experience maps, creating and viewing trigger videos, and co-designing visual “prototype” solutions. Analysis of participants’ comments indicated that these techniques can be powerful tools to foster mutual understanding and collaborative ideas, but they require a social, spatial, and temporal context that optimizes their value. A “safe space” is needed within which the essential elements of elicitation—building trust, finding voice, sharing perspectives, and creating a common vision—can occur. Three core, overlapping processes of co-design elicitation were identified: “building common perspectives,” “building mutual understanding,” and “building innovation.” We present a conceptual framework depicting the interplay of processes and elicitation techniques, essential to building mutual understanding and innovation during the EBCD process.