Changing perspective in the transition from Youth Care to WMO: Reimagining the role of the municipal public service to improve the perspective of young adults who are temporarily unable to study or work

This study is about young adults who cannot work or study due to mental health problems. When they turn 18, they have to wait for new care because of the transition from youth care to the adult social domain. This is why they are referred to as the W18 (waiteen) in this report.Besides waiting time, this study outlines four other problems that make this transition difficult: (1) Budget deficits in the social domain and a sharp drop in the young person’s budget after the transition from youth care to WMO; (2) There is a different human view (mensbeeld) per law and organisation, complicating transitions between services; (3) If a citizen has a complex problem, more domains, laws and counters are involved and (4) The W18 do not understand why the system is so complex, which leads to distrust towards the government.The research question of the thesis is: How can the municipality of The Hague improve its interaction with mentally vulnerable young adults around the life event of turning 18, using proactive design principles?The research was conducted from the human-centred design perspective. Six needs were defined from interviews with W18’ers. They need:1. Someone to help and guide them;2. Information on what to expect;3. Customised contact; 4. More room to make and fix mistakes; 5. A positive approach with a focus on what they can do;6. To be treated as human beings by the system. The design goal is to improve the perspective of young adults with mental health problems by creating clarity in their interaction with the municipal service. A journey of the current interactions was made. In examining the current journey, it was visible that the intake interview in particular evoked many negative feelings. As a result, the IMprint was developed: a matrix that can be used as a conversation tool and indication tool during intake interviews (Figure A). A score from 1 to 5 can be given on 5 life areas:- Social support,- Housing,- School and work,- Income,- Well-being.In addition to the IMprint, the MIrequest website has also been designed for making a notification or application for care (Figure B). All notifications for care and support can then be made through one digital portal. On this portal, the young person can do a kind of self-test. The result is a completed IMprint. Based on the score in the 5 areas of life, the young person is referred to the appropriate counters and facilities. This ‘self-test’ could also be the start of a single file that grows with the young person over the years.The IMprint could be implemented in the current system as a conversation tool at an intake interview of the WMO or youth care, or at a cross-domain special case manager for the 16-23 years target group. The next implementation step is to start using the digital portal. Per area of life, the young person can find facilities. In this way, they can search by type of age, life area and problem for facilities.Design for Interactio