We're celebrating our royally approved Youth Service throughout National Youth Work Week
This Youth Work Week, we’re making sure to celebrate our national award-winning Youth Service Team. The team, who consist of Qualified Youth Workers, Eleanor Gambini and Louise Melbourne, Playworker, Louise Trower and Volunteer, Mark Durkan, are a fantastic group of colleagues who have a number of different backgrounds, skills and training, many of which have had to be adapted throughout the pandemic to help support our younger patients.
The Youth Service Team play a key role aiding young people with long-term health conditions to feel empowered and to overcome some of the additional challenges that this can bring to their lives.
The pandemic has put a huge strain on many young people. Our Youth Service Team have thought of different ways to support our young patients throughout the pandemic by transforming their service in to a digital service.
The team have offered an online Youth Club and Youth Forum sessions which have consisted of fun activities such as games, quizzes with exciting prizes, Sign Language Lessons and a Q&A Session with Actor, Jack O’Connell.
They have also covered important topics such as Black Lives Matter, Pride and the importance of looking after their own mental health.
Eleanor Gambini, Youth Worker at UHDB said: “The impact the pandemic has had on young people has been huge. They have missed out on education, not seeing their friends and socialising. It has had a great impact on mental health and that has become more evident as the weeks and months have passed by. It has been importance for us to support young people, encourage independence and promote the importance of friendship through these difficult times.
“As a service, for us it is a lot harder when we can’t meet our young people face to face, but we have adjusted and adapted so that we are still able to support the young people”