Lived Experience Lab

We recognise that a significant amount of time, care and resource has gone into developing established mental health and wellbeing measures, and that these are often essential for evaluation, development and funding. At the same time, they do not always sit comfortably within arts based practice, or reflect how young people naturally express their experiences.

In the Lived Experience Lab, we explored whether it might be possible to bring measurement and creative practice closer together, rather than treating them as separate processes.

To do this, we used collaging as a creative response.

Young people were invited to engage with an existing mental health and wellbeing measure, but instead of completing it in a traditional way, they responded through making. Using collage, they created paper plates as visual answers, expressing their thoughts, feelings and interpretations of the questions in their own way.

This approach allowed young people to remain connected to creative practice, while still engaging with the intention behind the measure.

These responses were then explored through one to one conversations, creating space for young people to talk through their personal answers in a way that felt supported and individual.

Alongside this, group discussions focused on the experience of responding in this way. Participants reflected on what it felt like to answer creatively, what worked well, what felt different, and what this might mean for future practice.

This layered approach helped surface not just what young people might answer, but how they experience being asked.

The Lab contributed to the development of a sensitising framework, supporting researchers to think more carefully about when, why and how mental health measures are used, ensuring that young people’s perspectives remain central to these decisions.