NHS England – Health and Wellbeing Youth Summit
Trip to Birmingham!
I was given the brilliant opportunity to represent the North East at the NHS health and wellbeing youth summit in Birmingham and what a fabulous opportunity it was.
We started our day meeting the other young people from all different areas of the country who like myself are passionate about our young people. One of the best things of the day was seeing the passion burning through our young people, where they had had to be resilient and fight through their problems to make greater change for our children and young people across the nation.
During the day, we held discussions around 4 key topic areas where I was able to input the work we do in South Tees and other work across the northern region, as well as taking in the work going on in different areas of the country. We also discussed provisions and work we would like to see happen across the country to support those who need it the most.
There were two very powerful speeches from Ailsa Swarbrick (Head of perinatal, children and young people’s mental health) and Dame Rachel De Souza (Children’s Commissioner) who both outlined key important information about the work they do as well as key work they want to happen in the future to help and protect our children and young people from becoming vulnerable to poor mental health and wellbeing.
I also got to listen to two very strong lived experience young people who discussed their stories of growing up in the country suffering with mental health disorders and outlined the failings in services they used that led to their problems getting worse or unrecognised, but also outlined the positive practice and service that led to them being able to overcome and start their route to recovery from these problems.
It was a brilliant way to connect to other young people and professionals all so invested and passionate in health and wellbeing and moving forward it would be good to build relationships with those young people, by inviting the NHS Youth Advisory Panel to our Headstart conference to show our young people the amazing work that they do and teach our young people that their voice matters.
There was a lot to take away from the day, id like to give a massive thank you to the North East and North Cumbria Child Health & Wellbeing Network for the amazing opportunity to represent our region.
Adam Hart
Headstart Apprentice
Published: March 26