HEALTH AND WELL BEING IN YOUTH WORK METHOD and …

HEALTH AND WELL BEING IN YOUTH WORK METHOD and RESOURCE HANDBOOK

March 2012

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Overview

Youth work delivers information, advice, activities and support to young people who are learning about the many aspects of Health and Well-being. Youth workers have generally been in the position of seeking the resources to deliver these effectively through their own research. This handbook contains advice, guidance and suggestions for delivering good quality Health and Well-being youth work in one place. It is not meant to be the definitive answer to this but offers resources on most areas in which youth workers engage with young people. The resources are intended to be useable by all youth workers, paid or unpaid, in any setting and for whatever length of time that setting is operational.

The activities are available for use through photocopying. They can be added to in order to add local or group relevance by copying and pasting into a word document.

The handbook is part of a library of Good Practice Method and Resource Handbooks for Youth Work in Wales. The reader is encouraged to delve into the other handbooks for a plethora of practical resources which enhance youth work practice to deliver the best possible outcomes for young people in Wales.

Where new activities are found or information, particularly legal, is found to have changed, please inform the Youth Work Strategy branch in order that it may be included on their website.

Acknowledgements

Andy Borsden

Vale of Glamorgan Youth Service

Corinne Fry

Neath Port Talbot Youth Service

Bernard Pageant Reserve Forces and Cadets Association

Grant Poiner

Clubs for Young People Wales

Paul O' Neill

Caerphilly Youth Service

John Reaney

Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services

Alan Williams

Wrexham Youth Service

As noted later in the Introduction, the above wish to recognise the previous work on creating a resource pack for Health and Well-being in Youth Work by Caerphilly Youth Service and its partners in 2008. This pack owes a huge debt to the vast number of activities and resources they produced.

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Contents

1 Introduction

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2 Aim

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3 How to use the Handbook

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4 Recommendations for Delivering Health and Well-Being Related Youth Work 6

5 Health - The Eighth of the 10 Entitlements

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6 Equal Opportunities

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7 Confidentiality

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8 Child Protection

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9 How to Introduce the Activities

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10 Health Initiatives Calendar

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11 The Activity Areas

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a Healthy Diet and Exercise

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b Exploring Mental Health

61

c Sexual Health

96

d Tobacco Smoking

149

e Alcohol

171

f

Drugs

194

12 Evaluation

227

13 Consent Form

230

14 Risk assessment (Cooking activity)

231

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1. Introduction

This handbook considers a number of key public health priority areas with respect to young people aged 11 - 25. A range of data sources and methodologies are drawn on which reflect the fact that many of the factors affecting the health of young people lie beyond the control of the National Health Service (NHS). For NHS and allied agencies, maintaining and improving the health of young people through a partnership approach with Youth Services are vital to achieve the associate aims of health gain and reduction in health inequality.

Regularly and consistently addressing the health needs of young people in Wales Youth Services can influence and improve their lives. There is clear local and national evidence to suggest that young people do not receive appropriate health information, support and advice. Youth Work practitioners are ideally placed to raise awareness and deliver health related information and resources to young people. This Handbook aims to help youth workers deliver a variety of health related activities to young people in youth work settings.

This Handbook builds on Caerphilly County Borough Council's Health Resource Pack for Youth Work Practitioners for which Caerphilly LPHT and Caerphilly Youth Service attracted funding from the Welsh Government in 2008. This has since been amended and added to in order to produce this Handbook. Not all activities included are original but they have been tried and tested by the contributors to that Pack and the present Handbook.

In addition to previous acknowledgements, therefore, Welsh Government thanks all those who contributed to the previous resource packs which now form the basis of this one.

2. Aim

To provide a range of information and resources which enhance youth work practice relating to the Health and Wellbeing of young people

Objectives

1. Providing practical guidelines for setting up and running health-related workshops for young people aged 11 ? 25.

2. Giving practical ideas on working with young people. 3. Presenting a wide range of methods and activities linked with specific health topics. 4. Acting as a stimulus for further reading and in-depth discussion. 5. Signposting appropriate materials and resources available on health-related issues. 6. Establishing a framework to deliver health promotion and health education in youth

work settings.

The sections within this pack and the work that inspired them are based on the premise that health promotion and health education work with young people, within youth services, are necessary, important and valuable.

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3. How to use the Handbook

This Handbook has been designed to provide guidance and support for youth workers in developing a flexible approach towards setting up and running health related activities. The Handbook contains activities for 6 health topic areas. It is important to feel confident to deliver the activities so training should be accessed and the Handbook should be considered in its entirety before delivering the activities to young people. Supplementing the pack with additional reading before delivering an activity will also give a wider breadth of understanding of the issues discussed. Many of the sections covered in the pack are inter-linked, so the activities and fact sheets may be cross-referenced. Some of the activities will require photocopying and the cutting out of activity sheets before delivering the activity to young people. There are a number of fact sheets containing information in support of the activities, as well as information on the resources and training that is available from local services to assist session delivery. These can be copied and pasted from the website they are linked to. Information is constantly changing and therefore so are the activities. Please do not copy more than necessary and file them away and use later unless checking before on the website as to whether the activity has been updated, particularly where legal issues may be involved. To make best use of this resource pack the following is suggested: 1. Familiarisation with the content of the resource pack by reading through it fully. 2. Identifying training programmes and local resources (for example, training aids, posters, and leaflets) that are available to support the work. 3. Familiarisation with the settings in which the various activities will be delivered (in terms of health and safety, size of venues and facilities available). 4. Establishing the health needs of the young people you are working with. 5. Encouraging young people to take letters home to inform their parents of the health activities to be covered. 6. Meeting other youth workers for opportunities to share practice.

Where there are websites which give additional information, they are indicated in blue text. Hovering the mouse over this text and control and clicking will take you to that page.

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