MyBRANCHES: Co-Production of a Peer-Supported, Flexibly Delivered and Digitally Enabled Self-Management Intervention for Young People Transitioning from Early Intervention in Psychosis Services

Young people accessing Early Intervention in Psychosis Services (EIPS) report positive experiences. However, they also report ‘pinch points’: moments of stress, confusion, or challenge. A major pinch point is at discharge. In this project, we used co-design and co-production to build and test a digital, peer-supported tool that helps young people plan, and feel ready, for their discharge from an Early Intervention in Psychosis service.

Language and visual design elements were seen as key to supporting engagement with the tool. When done well, these elements have the potential to enhance trustworthiness, add value, and support a young person to feel safe while using a tool. Lived experience quotes were identified as a way to address stigma, normalise experiences associated with psychosis, and communicate practical learnings about preparing for discharge. A tool that supports discharge should support both emotional reflection, and practical planning. Co-design was undertaken with multiple stakeholders and multiple sites, and co-designers reported very high levels of satisfaction with the process.

Discharge from a service represents a potentially critical intervention point, that has not been widely considered in research and practice. When engaging with planning to support discharge, accommodation of differences in experience regarding psychosis is important and can support enhanced engagement with the process by young people. Multi-stakeholder, multi-site co-design, though potentially time and resource intensive, is a viable and effective way of collaborating with diverse groups of people with different types of health and social experiences.