Published on: July 24, 2024
Changing Lives have launched a competition to find a new logo that represents their service, and it will be designed and chosen by the children and young people of Derby and Derbyshire.
Compass Changing Lives deliver mental health and emotional wellbeing support to children and young people in Derby City and Derbyshire. Following their expansion to include a new Early Intervention and Targeted Support Service, they now cover the entirety of Derby and Derbyshire. They want a new logo that represents not only what they do, but also the full breadth and diversity of the people they support.
Compass Changing Lives aims to empower children and young people through participation at every level in the service, which is why it was important to them that the new logo was designed by and chosen by children and young people. This is part of a larger engagement and participation strategy that aims to include children and young people in decision-making in a range of areas throughout Changing Lives.
Children and young people’s participation is one of the five key principles of the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme, and “the child’s right to be heard” forms article 12 of the General Principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). As such, participation by children and young people is fundamental to Changing Lives as a service.
The need for a new logo was first highlighted at a steering group that Changing Lives is part of, looking at barriers to accessing mental health services for young people from ethnic minority groups and boys. Changing Lives’ Engagement and Equalities Officer Mel Johnson used this as a prompt to ask more children and young people what they thought of the logo. Many mentioned that they felt that the current logo did not represent them, and that as a result they did not feel that Changing Lives was for them, creating a barrier to accessing support.
With the then upcoming expansion of Changing Lives to bring in an Early Intervention and Targeted Support Service, it was decided that this was the perfect time to choose a logo that represents everybody they support and will support in the future.
The current logo was also designed by a young person from Derbyshire, and chosen through a competition that took place in 2020. So this competition builds on a precedent of centring young people’s voices in Changing Live’s brand identity.
The competition is open to every child in Derby and Derbyshire that is aged between 5-18 years old. To enter, young people must design a new logo either digitally or by hand, following the design brief, then send their designs to Changing Lives by email or post. Full details of the competition, including the design brief, can be found here.
From these entries, a panel chosen by Changing Lives will pick a shortlist of 10 designs that they think meet the brief most closely. This shortlist of 10 will be returned to schools for a vote.
The winning designs will be chosen by vote by the children and young people of Derbyshire.
This logo will go on to be the official logo of Compass Changing Lives. It will be used across all official documents and promotional materials, including on the website, social media pages, workbooks and more. It will form the basis of the Changing Lives brand identity.
Changing Lives staff are very excited to see what their new logo could be. Mel had the following to say:
“This is a great opportunity for the children and young people from Derby and Derbyshire to showcase their creativity and contribute to a project that will be seen by many. They have such imaginative ideas, and I can’t wait to see the amazing designs that they create”
The extended deadline for the competition is midnight Monday 30th September 2024, and full details can be found here.
Children , Derby and Derbyshire Mental Health Support , participation