British Children and Their Health - Term Paper Example

Identify the Key Influences on the Health and Well Being of Young People 13-19 Years in Westminster Introduction The young people are the aspiration of a nation. The Government knows that it is necessary to make sure that the children and young people are to be focused for the future of the nation and hence their voices must be heard at the heart of Government. Therefore it is vital for a nation to take care and look after their health and well-being which in turn bring prosperity to the nation. The UK Government's 1999 statement indicates obvious improvement in the UK in setting up and sustaining a greater focus on children's and young people’s rights and well being. There have been major progresses in the Government's approach to children and young people since that report was published; and systems are currently in place to make certain a further planned and coherent approach to children's issues throughout the Government. The Quality Protects Program to make better life chances of children in public care led the way for the participation of children and young people in its design. The fresh Connexions personal consultant service for 13 to 19yrs. has been made in full discussion with young people The Department for Education and Skills has discussed with young people on its new White Papers to renovate Secondary Education for 14-19 year olds. The core values go together with the standards for children and young people's involvement in local democratic system set out in the National Youth Agency. The Children and Young People's Unit is taking step to make this sort of excellent practice the standard. The Government has decided to follow clear ideology for engaging well with children and young people and the Sections in charge for strategies and services for children and young people in England will make yearly evaluated action plans to show the progress checked against consistent values (Joint Committee On Human Rights, 2003). Healthier Westminster The Westminster is a City that makes sure everyone’s health and well being. The agenda for a Healthier Westminster stand for more incorporated approach to setting up local services to support work around enhancing the health of local people. This merges work in the region of both the Health Improvement and Modernization Plan, and the Community Care Plan. As a result of combining these two plans together, the Program attracts all the local ideas which are intended to help improve health. This is a broad vision than looking at precise priorities for rising health and social care services and comprises data about the wider determinants of health in Westminster. According to the Programme for a Healthier Westminster 2002 - 2005 the key intends were: to improve access to health and social care services that will reduce waiting times for out patient and inpatient care, improve access to primary care services and to emergency hospital services and integrate health, social services and other City Council services. meet national targets to reduce deaths from heart disease and cancer, reduce levels of smoking, implement national targets to tackle mental illness, implement London targets to tackle TB Support helpless people to live independently, help more people to live safely in the community, help people to be securely discharged from hospital and give post hospital treatment. Work in partnership to encourage good health and well being which encourage better participation and sharing by persons, groups and societies in promoting good health. To lessen health disparities in health services, needs to control teenage pregnancy support people to defy drug abuse in order to attain their full potential in society, and ensure fairness of access to NHS services for black and minority racial groups The Local Government Act 1999 has strengthened the responsibility of the local system to contribute to health enhancement. This in addition gave local authorities the important role in improving the financial, social and ecological well-being of their regions. The Local Government Act 2000 set out sweeping modifications to the method in which the local system work. The plan is to make certain that policy making becomes more harmonized and strategic and that service users are the centre of the services. The significance of attaining superior quality and more well-organized services was also highlighted. The Government considers that changes to the organization of local authorities will give improved and more useful control and will make decision making easier for people to appreciate and hence improve responsibility. In the year 2000, an innovative responsibility was placed on all local authorities to create a public policy to develop the economic, social and environmental well being of the local region. The plan should be based on the ambitions, wants and importance expressed by local people and should build a genuine contribute to the accomplishment of sustainable growth all over the country. The New Westminster City Partnership has been set up to make certain that local visions create a real distinction in managing the progress, design and execution of the City Plan. The partnership consists of the City Council, Westminster Primary Care Trust (PCT), the police, the voluntary and community segment, local business and the local society. This is intended to revive the social and physical infrastructure of the City and many of the schemes will have an optimistic result on both the health of residents and the progress of local heath and social care systems. There are several of major local partnership schemes which will have a straight bearing on the general health and well being of local people. Since these schemes are mostly linked with renewal and aimed at deprived communities or precise to geographic areas, they are also considered to assist develop local disparities in health. Additional group of people, voluntary sector, public, private organizations and residents getting to work jointly, the more will be the accomplishment of good health and well-being, sustainable development and improved quality services. Dealing with health, social care, housing, crime, employment and education, issues needs all local institutions working in concentrated effort together. Partnership working is vital to bring organizations, service users, their families, careers and other residents together to recognize people’s needs and develop importance and plans to address these needs successfully (NHS, 2005). The Local Preventative Strategy (LPS) According to Local Preventative Strategy for Children and Young People’s 2003-2006, is the long-term plan for Westminster which intends how the children and young people who are born, raised, educated and find work in the City will get assistance to aid them attain their full potential all through their lives. The plan take care of all children and young people from birth to the age of 19 and meet along with the Children & Young People's deliberate Plan, providing a precise focus on prevention and early intervention. The progress of the LPS was led by the Children & Young People’s Strategic Partnership (CYPSP), in discussion with the community and with all of the organizations and divisions in charge for the release of services to children and young people. The plan is intended to lessen the social barring of children and young people by making certain that they enjoy the best possible health, live in a safe, stable, caring family and society, have provision to leisure and cultural activities, enjoy freedom from poverty, attain their full potential in learning and other areas of their lives, grow up to be accountable and active members of the society. In tackling the risk factors that make children and young people susceptible to pessimistic results, the LPS sets the method for services to lessen social barring. The long-term objective for Westminster’s children and young people is to grow into adults who are financially active and able to attain a good standard of fiscal and social well-being for themselves and their own families. The children who are exhibiting risk factors which show that they may become socially barred, the LPS make certain that they will receive early intervention services. The early intervention involves ensuring that the exhibit of risk features and mainly an inflammation of risk factors relating to one child (e.g. learning disability, school absence, domestic violence and anti-social behaviour), means that the child and family are referred to the services they need from a multi-agency support network. Early intervention is a significant issue in avoiding social barring, as it is easier to redirect a young person from, criminal tendency, before that behaviour has begin, rather than the crime has been committed. Early intervention may be quite simple as ensuring that a child or young person is accessing the mainstream services to which they are permitted (City of Westminster, 2006). Connexions - a new youth support service The best start in life for every young person was published by the DfEE on 3 February 2000. This document explains the promise of ‘Social Exclusion Unit Report Bridging the gap’ to set up a new youth support service for 13-19 year olds will be put into practice. The legislation necessary to set up the service is enclosed in the Learning and Skills Bill. In setting up the Connexions Service, the government wishes to bring together almost all advisory and support services for young people into a rational network, secured in a single point of contact accessible by personal advisers. The plan of the new service is to facilitate all young people aged 13-19 to take part efficiently in suitable learning – whether in school, college, in the workplace or with another contributor. The Connexions Service will be put together, around a network of personal advisers, taken from several of backgrounds - including the youth service, careers service, social services and schools. They will be responsible for making sure that all the needs of the young person are met in a harmonized way. Every young person aged 13-19 will have a personal adviser. Personal advisers will efficiently take action to a wide range of services young people may require to aid them access and take up education opportunities. This is a clear-cut careers advice; young people may require assistance with numerous evils averting them from engaging in learning - such as drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and homelessness (LGA Executive, 2000). A state of the art resource that coalesces fun, function, advice and support for young people in Westminster the brand new Stowe Centre opened its doors to young people and the local community from Monday to Friday. The Centre provides a number of activities and opportunities and also houses Connexions, a one-stop-shop for young people aged 13-19 who want advice about any facet of their lives together with careers, housing and benefits. The layout is modern with a youth floor complete with a Chill Zone and a plasma TV screen. There is a recording booth, a DJ room, and dance and drama suite. Youth activities run all day and moves are at present being made to set up a weekly disability youth night (Ali, 2006). The transition period from children to adult, young people are at a critical and difficult time of their life stage. When in adolescence, young people begin to leave the limits of their home and enjoy larger freedom. Friends turn out to be more significant and influence outside the home stronger; young people in the UK spend extra time with their friends and less time with parents than young people in many other European countries. The transition to adulthood are more multifaceted. Studies indicates that young people in the UK are uncovered to more information, make more user choices, and are faced with less clear-cut trail through education and into employment than once was the case. The effect is that ‘soft’ or non-cognitive talents are fetching more and more fundamental to young people’s ability to negotiate these transitions and make the finest options and decisions. Non-cognitive skills, such as team work, communication and understanding of others, ambition, and the capability to deal with tasks and to resolve problems have a caring effect, serving to support other optimistic outcomes such as achievement and service (HM Treasury, 2007). In England, the most recent statistics indicate there are over 130,000 homeless children living in provisional housing, another 905,000 children are projected to be living in congested conditions and 480,000 children in unhealthy homes. Such housing settings have a critical impact on the well-being and progress of children. In addition, recent research carried out by the University of Sheffield disputes that children born in this century will be starting life more unequal in terms of housing than has been the case at any time before. Every child in families accepted as homeless plus those who are recognized as unsettled, for example those whose families have accessed housing, through the Council’s rental deposit scheme, will have their housing need assessed by a team. The results of the assessments will be provided to local authority officers in charge for allocating housing so that these factors can be taken into account. The housing requirements appraisals will lead to informed decisions being made about the impact of an allocation on children’s education, health and safety (Shelter, 2006). Professional role of the Nurse ‘Nursing and nurses had a long history of international collaboration to improve the health of people.’ (McElmurry, Kim and Al Gasseer, 2000). This collective obligation to health and partnership has underpinned the teenager health and development into pre-service nursing and midwifery curriculum. Professional Nurses are in a matchless position by asset of their education, numbers, and diversity of practice arenas to contribute to the health of adolescents. Almost all countries, nurses form the major portion of health providers and have the latent to act in response to youth health and development matters in individual, family and community practice settings Mahasneh (2001) urges nurses to take advantage of on their assessment skills and presume a leadership responsibility in order to encourage the highest achievable standard of health. The health of adolescents needs pressing universal awareness, and the improvement of the skills of Professional nurses is an effective policy (Mapanga, 1997). Presently, nurses are becoming sensitive to and well-informed about cultural diversities and similarities in people’s care (Dowd et al., 1998; Duffy, 2001; Leininger, 2002). They should be aware of the values of all cultures, races and ethnic groups and react to these differences (Dowd et al., 1998). Rising diversity and mobility of the social order emphasize the vital requirement for professional nurses to provide holistic, culturally proficient nursing care (Ryan et al., 2000). The concept Tran’s cultural nursing was developed as of the requirement to work with people from widely different cultural feeling. People from a variety of cultures and subcultures are more widespread in today’s world. These people are sensitive to the protection of their cultural legacy and customs. Hence it is vital that nurses, because of their direct patient care, appreciate and work successfully within this varied cultural environment. This also calls for excellent communication skill to deal with various patients, belonging to various communities and cultural back ground and also to tackle children and young people with various challenges. Conclusion It is essential to understand that the more the community, charitable sector, public, private organizations and residents work together the more the nation are to realize good health and well-being, sustainable growth and better quality services. Dealing with children and young people’s health, social care, housing, crime, employment and education, issues needs all local institutions working in concerted effort collectively. The roles of professional nurses in these aspects are widely appreciated. Joint venture is vital to bring institutions, service users, their families, care takers and other residents in concert to identify people’s desires and develop priorities and plans to tackle these requirements efficiently. References Ali, J. (2006) Change for Children, Issue 2 June 2006. [Online] Available from: [Accessed on 23 August 2007]. City of Westminster, (2006) Our Children: Our Future Children and Young People’s Local Preventative Strategy 2003-2006 (Draft) [Online] Available from: [Accessed on 23 August 2007]. Dowd, S.B., Giger, J.N., Davidhizars, R., (1998). Use of Giger and Davidhizar’s transcultural assessment model by health professions. International Nursing Review 45(4), 119-123. Duffy, M.E., (2001). A critique of cultural education in nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing 36, 487-495. HM Treasury, (January 2007) Policy review of children and young people: A discussion paper, [Online] Available from: [Accessed on 23 August 2007]. Joint Committee on Human Rights, (2003) Annex 2: UK Implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Crc): An Update to the UK's Second Report To the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 1999. [Online] Joint Committee on Human Rights, Tenth report. Available from: [Accessed on 23 August 2007]. Leininger, M., (2002). Culture care theory: a major contribution to advance transcultural nursing knowledge and practices. Journal of Transcultural Nursing 10(1):9. LGA Executive, (2000) [Online] Available from: [Accessed on 23 August 2007]. Mahasneh S. (2001). Health perceptions and health behaviours of poor Jordanian women. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 36(1):58–68. Mapanga KG (1997). The perils of adolescent pregnancy. World Health, 50(2):16-17. McElmurry B.J., Kim S., Al Gasseer N. (2000). Global nursing leadership: a professional imperative. Seminars for Nurse Managers, 8(4):232–238. NHS, (2005) Programme for a Healthier Westminster 2002 – 2005. City of Westminster, [Online] Available from: [Accessed on 23 August 2007]. Ryan, M., Carlton, K.H., Ali, N., (2000). Transcultural nursing concepts and experiences in nursing curricula. Journal of Transcultural Nursing 11(4), 300-307. Shelter, (2006) Shelter’s submission to the children and young people’s review [Online] Available from: [Accessed on 23 August 2007]. Read More