WHY
Birmingham City Council is committed to creating a Mentally Healthy City. In 2024, the council partnered with ICE to gather community insights that informed the strategy and actions needed to strengthen the mental wellness and resilience of the city. The project aimed to define and shape a clear plan to achieve this vision, with co-production at its heart.
HOW
A Three-Stage Approach to Co-Production:
- Engaging communities and gathering insights: This ensured the voices of Birmingham’s diverse communities were heard and valued.
- Testing and refining priorities: Insights were used to shape and adjust the plan.
- Collaborative final refinement: The final strategy was co-developed with stakeholders.
ICE prioritised accessibility and comfort, holding workshops, group discussions, and one-on-one interviews in familiar environments like community centres, coffee mornings, and wellbeing groups. Opportunistic interviews in public spaces like high streets and university campuses further broadened the reach, ensuring inclusivity.
WHAT
The insights gathered highlighted four key priorities for a Mentally Healthy Birmingham:
- Improving awareness and opportunities to talk about mental wellbeing.
- Ensuring safety and security for all citizens.
- Raising awareness of and access to support services.
- Empowering communities to support each other.
At the core of these priorities lies a commitment to equality, inclusion, and celebrating diversity. This “golden thread” should run throughout the strategy, ensuring it reflects the rich and varied experiences of Birmingham’s population.
Informed by the voices of citizens through co-production, these priorities will help shape the final Mentally Healthy City Strategy, supporting individuals, families, communities, and places across Birmingham to be mentally healthy, well, and resilient.
205
Local people engaged & worked with
8
Co-Production workshops
18
Virtual stakeholder interviews
“ICE were very understanding of tight timescales and worked flexibly to support us. There were a couple of bumps in the road, but ICE were quick to resolve them and did this in an empathetic fashion. We received fantastic insights from the work, and it was communicated very clearly and visually in a well written report. Thank you for all of the hard work”
