Child Exploitation and the Impact on Health and Wellbeing

A good place to start when thinking about the health and wellbeing of young people is to consider the following:

The Teenage Brain

Adolescence is an important time for brain development and brain development is related to social experiences during adolescence.

Why the teenage brain has an evolutionary advantage - You Tube Video

Understanding Behaviour

We may see a lot of behaviour’s which can be challenging and/ or confusing. Some behaviours we see may be an attempt to self-sabotage or a Fight, Flight, Freeze response. The following videos can be helpful to help us understand some of what we see when supporting children and young people and can also be helpful for those supporting adults too.

This is a video by Dan Siegel who invented the phrase ‘flip your lid’ and the hand model of the brain explaining how the brain works that has experienced trauma. 

Daniel Siegel Hand Model - You Tube Video

Opening Doors Trauma Informed Practice for the Workforce - You Tube Video

Once we understand development a little more and behaviours we can really start to help engage and support young people in understanding health and what this means to them. It can also help will engaging young people with accessing health services confidently longer term.

Your physical health affects your emotional health; and your emotional health affects your physical health.

There are lots of ways you can look after your physical and your emotional health.

Below is some information and links to services and resources that may be really useful

Physical Health  

Physical health describes the condition of your body. This includes whether you have an illness, injury or a health condition.

People who can help you are:

• Your GP 
• Your Local  Pharmacy - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
• NHS 111
• A&E - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
• Your Dentist or the Emergency Dentist who can support if you are worried out of hours or are not registered with a Dentist. 

There are also lots of other health services, advice and resources that can be found via the Tameside Children and Young People NHS Website.

Emotional Health

Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health are hard words to explain because they mean different things for different people.

Having good emotional wellbeing or mental health usually means that someone is happy, healthy and safe, but can also include things like having good relationships with other people, a sense of purpose, and feeling in control of your life.

Having good mental wellbeing and health does not mean that we always feel happy and content. Everyone has a balance of feelings, both good and bad. Our feelings change day to day and are affected by what happens in our lives. Looking after our mental health helps us to cope with life’s ups and downs.

There are lots of services out there including:

• Kooth
• Tameside Oldham and Glossop Mind (togmind.org)
• Papyrus UK Suicide Prevention | Prevention of Young Suicide (papyrus-uk.org)

Tameside and Glossop CAMHS 

• Children and young people crisis service 
• Tameside young people’s mental health support team 
• Young people’s specialist support team 
• Mental health helpline 

The Role of the Complex Safeguarding Specialist Nurse.

The Complex Safeguarding Specialist Nurse works full time in partnership with the Complex Safeguarding Team.

The main role and responsibilities of the Nurse are to:

• Provide an oversight of the health needs of young people open to the Complex Safeguarding Team and ensure their health needs are assessed and met. 
• Share information to and from multi-agency partners and partners in health to ensure that they are aware of a young person’s vulnerabilities and how we can optimise their health outcomes. 
• Develop and deliver training to health partners and colleagues. 
• Ensure the views of children and young people can influence the development of practice locally. 
• Develop and share good practice. 
• Support, advise and/or guide health colleagues in community or acute settings with anything linked to complex safeguarding. 

Health Pathway for Children and Young People Open to the Complex Safeguarding Team.

• The Complex Safeguarding Specialist Nurse will see any young person aged 16 or older (even if they are at school).
• Under the age of 16 any young person open to the team will be supported by the  Tameside School Nursing Service.
• The School Nursing Team will remain lead professional until the child is aged 19 (25). 
• If a young person cared for by the local authority, they will be supported by the Cared for Children Specialist Nurses in the area that they are living or their allocated School Nurse. 
• More information about the Cared for Children Health Team in Tameside can be found here : The Cared for Children Health Team in Tameside 
• Each child will be offered a full and comprehensive holistic health assessment, and this will be completed by either the Complex Safeguarding Specialist Nurse, School Nurse or Cared for Children Specialist Nurse.