Co-designing the vision for early intervention and prevention mental health support in Islington
This consultation has concluded - thank you for your contributions
Over 2025 we worked with residents, partners and experts by experience to co-design a vision for a long-term model of early intervention and prevention mental health support in Islington.
We wanted to understand what support worked well, what needed improvement, and what future support might be required.
We recognised the need to modernise our mental health offer to achieve better outcomes and align with new models of care. Rising demand, diverse community needs, and challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic and cost-of-living crisis highlighted the importance of accessible and inclusive services.
Results and next steps
Thank you to everyone who took part in this project. See our co-designed vision and next steps in our News feed.-
A co-designed vision for mental health in Islington
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In December 2024, Islington Council started a project to shape the future of early help and prevention mental health support. We worked together with residents, Islington Mind, other local organisations and partners. Over 11 months, we listened to more than 450 people to create a shared vision for the future. This Report shares Our Vision and explains what we did and what we learned. A Short Film was made to share the key themes.
The project was jointly led by a group of experts by experience and an independent facilitator. It was also supported by the council’s Live Well Commissioning team. People took part in surveys, workshops, interviews and creative activities to help us write the vision.
People with lived experience wrote the vision in workshops. They checked the language to make sure it was easy to understand and gave guidance on the final design.
Thank you to everyone who took part in the co-design activities.
Our vision is for everyone in Islington to get the help they need for their mental health quickly, easily and without judgement.
To achieve this, we will:
1. Tackle stigma and support good mental health
Provide services that are welcoming, kind and easy to access. People will know where to get the right help at the right time.
2. Treat everyone with respect
Value a person’s strengths and work with every aspect of the person, their culture, and community.
3. Listen to local people and learn from their experiences
People with lived experience will shape our services, so we know they really work.
4. Offer support in different ways
Support will be available in person, online, in community spaces and at times that suit people. Peer support will be built into our services.
What is in the report
The report includes some brief context on why change is needed, what support is already available, what we found out, how we listened to people and how we will use the vision.
What we found out
We spoke to over 450 people and gathered lots of helpful information and feedback. We listened to what people told us and found three big things, or themes that affect mental health and getting help: Factors which affect quality of life and inequalities, how support is organised and services work together, and barriers to getting support.
What we’re doing next
- The Live Well Commissioning team will use the vision to plan for the future. It will help us to design and develop the services and support that people want, and that people find most helpful for their mental health. And, to measure services to check if we are getting it right.
- We want everyone who plans, pays for, and provides services to use this vision. We will present the vision to senior leaders in the council and in the wider system to help us with this.
- We have started, and will continue, to ask local organisations and partners across Islington for commitments to delivering the vision.
- After one year, officers will check in with residents to see if the commitments that have been made to delivering the vision are working well and what more may need to be done.
- There will be more consultation, engagement and co-production opportunities as part of any planning that we do. If you want to be part of shaping the future of Islington's mental health support, please keep checking back on this page for updates.
