Hospital Youth Worker

Hospital youth worker

The A&E department at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton treats up to 100 children and young people every day and the numbers in mental health crisis are rising dramatically.

Doctors and nurses are seeing incidents of self-harm, attempted suicide and severe eating disorders on an alarming scale, and despite their absolute best efforts, they simply don’t have the capacity to treat the underlying issues that have resulted in their visit to the hospital.

At Rockinghorse we always try to listen to what our colleagues within the NHS tell us about the additional support they feel is most needed. In this case, they explained that having a resource based right where it’s needed in the A&E department would mean that vulnerable young people could be more easily identified and helped at the point where this additional support is most likely to be successful.

So, we partnered with The Trust for Developing Communities (TDC), a Brighton based charity experienced in delivering youth work in the city, to fund a Youth Worker based in the hospital, taking a preventative approach with children and young people frequently in the care of the hospital with deteriorating mental health.

Thanks to our supporters for funding the first two years of this project.

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