This was the outcome from a group of young people thinking about what kind of language might work to underpin a learning environment designed specifically for young people to support them to manage and understand their mental health experiences.
The result is establishment of a ‘Discovery’ College which simplistically put is a youth version of the Recovery College movement but has the significant difference of being by and for young people. The language of discovery enables young people to explore what’s going on for them without necessarily being drawn into any one dominant framework such as an illness or ‘clinical’ one which the mental health system has traditionally dictated.
The Discovery College is a new initiative – reportedly the first internationally – that aims to support young people to discover the meaning and understanding in their experiences that works for them. For some this may be exploring and coming to embrace cultural understanding, for others spiritual, for others bio- medical and for others still a combination of a number of frameworks. The point is to allow young people a space to find their meaning and self determine the way they choose to live with their mental health and wellbeing.
