The Youth Worker service at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital was recently awarded a High Sheriff’s Award to recognise it’s work within the local community.
The High Sheriff of East Sussex, Mr Richard Bickersteth, recently hosted an awards ceremony at Hellingly Community Hub, where he presented High Sheriff’s Awards to eleven local charities.
Every year the High Sheriff of East Sussex is able to make a number of personal awards to recognise and celebrate the work of charities and organisations within the County who have made outstanding contributions to the communities in which they live or work.
The Youth Worker service, funded by Rockinghorse and the Sussex Violence Reduction Partnership, and run by the Trust for Developing Communities, has been in operation for over 2 years, based within the Emergency Department (ED) of the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton.
The service offers support, advice and signposting to young people coming into the ED with injuries, overdoses and mental health issues related to difficult situations happening in their lives.
These skilled interventions quickly build relationships with at-risk young people. The youth workers can then help to create joint safety plans with the young people so that they are able to be active participant in their own support.
The service then enables these young people and their families to reflect on the reasons why they ended up in the hospital and gives them help to find ways through and out of their situations using signposting to other local services near to where they live.
Sharon Gearing, Head of Trust Fundraising at Rockinghorse, went to the ceremony along with Youth Worker SeanO Older and Director of Youth Work at the Trust for Developing Communities, Adam Muirhead.
Sharon was delighted that the service was recognised by the High Sheriff. She said, “The Youth Workers are having such an incredibly positive impact on so many young people who come into the Hospital feeling at their lowest point, with no-where to turn.
“Being able to provide them with a way to break the cycle of violence or mental health can help them find a new, more positive outlook that will not only help them, but also go some way to easing the pressure on NHS staff within the department who simply don’t have the capacity to treat the underlying issues that result in their visit to the hospital.”
Find out more about the Youth Worker service here.
