Cuts to services as a major threat to young people's health

The cuts to youth services made in the name of ‘savings’ are giving great cause for concern for the health and well-being of many young people in the UK this summer . More than £100million was removed from Local Authority Services for young people up to March this year, according to the confederation of Heads of Young People’s Services. “Almost 3, 000 full-time staff who work with young people have lost their jobs.”

In my own practice area the posts of Parent Support Advisors, based in schools, who worked with parents to maximise their children’s engagement with  learning have been axed. The  PSA’s were often a very effective link between home and professional services  for vulnerable families, including accompanying teenagers to see their GP or to attend CAMHS appointments. Who will step in to take up their role once their contracts are not renewed ? 

MPs on the Education select committee have expressed their disapproval of the trenchant cuts. The committee’s chair,  Graham Stuart has said the” disproportionate budget reductions” could have “ dramatic and long-lasting” consequences and an increase in crime was “inevitable”.   

See www.guardian.co.uk (30/07/11)

The worst case scenario for a disaffected generation of young people this summer, bored and broke, is a descent  into social fragmentation and a rise in crime-with their peers the obvious targets. According to Scotland Yard victims in the age group 13-24 years have increased by 30% between 2008-09 and 2010-11. For all of us working with this population, this is a very concerning trend which has serious and widespread ramifications for the communities in which knife crime is a real reality. As health professionals we need to be mobilizing against this  social phenomenon which has relative poverty and social inequality at its centre.

Jane Roberts

jane.roberts@sunderland.ac.uk

31/07/11

July update

[Photo taken at SAPC annual scientific meeting at Bristol, July 2011, at the welcome wine tasting, catching up with Prof Kelsey Hegarty from Melbourne who presented some fabulous work on domestic violence]

Hope everyone reading this is well and looking forward to  having a break over summer.

I wanted to update you on  a few adolescent health matters.

There has been a release of the recently modified You’re Welcome criteria

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_126813

Well worth reading and accessing the check list but regrettable that the ring-fenced money for supporting practices has since been withdrawn and the check list activity will carry no quality assurance (and rely on rater honesty!). Also, regrettable that no primary care staff seem to have been involved in the working party who update the quality criteria (see acknowledgments).

It seems we have more work to do to raise the profile of GPs’ clinical involvement in Transitional care when young people move from paediatric  to adult services. This has been a key area of DH activity and was also the subject of a workshop we ran at RCGP Conference 2009 but we need to let more people know what happens in day to day practice and contribute to training and development. Like starting senior school, moving out of paediatric and child centred care into adult services can be tricky and unsettling with people falling through the gap, yet many of the problems can be anticipated.

Also wanted to add the link to the Association of Young People’s Health with whom we are looking to work more closely this year.

http://www.youngpeopleshealth.org.uk

We will be participating on a series of national Master Classes and also collaborating on two national conferences : more nearer the time.

Talking of conferences ,last week I was at SAPC’s annual scientific meeting in Bristol.

http://www.sapc.ac.uk

It was a great success and the presentations were , as ever ,of high calibre although a scan of the published abstracts shows overall  a low percentage of research targeting the needs and  experiences of young people. 33/672  posters and oral presentations included data on the under 18 years old.

I intend to lead the group on a research project this year and to work with young researchers as active participants. We will be considering proposals when we next meet in September.

Until the next blog posting

Best wishes

Jane

jane.roberts@sunderland.ac.uk