Social ยท Social research
Understanding Mental Health Support Needs with Essex County Council
2-week
community
16
residents
Mental health
focus
The challenge
Moving beyond the limitations of traditional interviews
Essex County Council needed to understand how residents cope with their mental health needs, the support services they currently use, and how they navigate the search for additional help.
Traditional research often struggles to capture the sensitive, private, and non-linear nature of mental health journeys, so we designed an approach that felt safe and flexible for participants.
Project context
- Industry Public sector
- Solution Social research
- Format Two-week community
- Participants 16 residents with mental health needs
- Methods Private flexible tasks, lived-experience capture
The approach
Uncovering the day-to-day reality of residents via digital ethnography
We launched a two-week online research community with 16 residents currently living with mental health needs, allowing participants to share lived experiences in their own time and space.
Lived experience capture
We used private, flexible tasks to allow residents to document their day-to-day realities and coping strategies.
Service mapping
Participants shared their experiences with existing services, highlighting both what works and where they encounter barriers to accessing help.
Resident-led insights
By giving residents a safe digital space, we shifted from researchers asking questions to residents telling their own stories.
The result
A foundation for services that meet real needs
The project captured behaviour and needs that have informed ECC's future support strategies. Our senior research partners at the Council noted that they were really happy to have taken this step because they just would not have been able to get this level of insight with an online interview alone, and were really surprised at how creative people had been in sharing their stories. This rich data now serves as a foundation for evolving services to meet the actual needs of Essex residents.
Ready to see incling in action?
Talk to the team about your research challenge and we will show you what is possible.