Publish date: 21 July 2023
Young NHS service user consultants from the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service (GHWS) collaborated with youth community organisation Young K&C to produce a video, featuring people in North Kensington discussing what it means to be resilient.
They came up with the idea for the video, “to show the diversity in the community, lift spirits, and show even after Grenfell the community is still thriving,” according to Amaani, one of the NHS consultants who co-designed the project.
The video was produced as part of the "We Got U, U Got This" mental health campaign, which aims to make young people in Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster more aware of the mental health services available to them.
In the video, which is nearly 6 minutes long, the young service user consultants interview people on the streets, before sharing their own experiences, and how the NHS supported them following Grenfell.
14 year old Amaani, NHS Service User Consultant said in the video: “Two years ago I came here at for therapy, because of Grenfell and it really helped me just unlock the trauma because it happened when I was quite young and I didn’t know how to process it, there was a lot of emotions and I didn’t know what grief was. I never really expressed deep sadness because I was eight years old. And I went to therapy and they helped me to recognise that and I was keeping it bottled up and you know when you keep something bottled up, everything ends up coming out. People on social media don’t show themselves struggling, so you think ‘why am I like this? Why am I sad? Why do I get anxiety? Why can’t I be like them?’”
Shaheed, another of our NHS service user consultants involved in the project, said: I’ve been using this service for some time and it’s been very helpful to me, and now I’m trying to help other young people like me.”
Shaheed later asked Sasha Nagra, GHWS Therapist, what advice she would give to people who are feeling lonely.
Sasha said: “I think it’s really important for people to know there’s help out there for people who have those kind of experiences or people who are worried about being judged or feeling safe and there’s a kind of reality to that because homophobia, transphobia, racism, all of these things do exist but at the same time there are going to be safe spaces and safe people that you can go to, so it’s a process of learning and figuring out who are those safe people.”
If you need support
You can get in touch with the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Service by calling 020 8637 6279 everyday from 8am to 8pm.
After 8pm and out of hours please call the CNWL Advice Support line on 0800 0234 650.