Children North East and its South Tees Arts Project (STAR) partners are delighted to announce that their initiative to improve the health and wellbeing of disadvantaged children in South Tees has been shortlisted for ‘Most Impactful Project Addressing Health Inequalities’ at the HSJ Partnership Awards 2022, recognising their outstanding contribution to healthcare and NHS collaboration.

Over 190 entries were received for this year’s Awards, which will announce overall winners on 24^th March.

HSJ commented, “STAR was shortlisted, ahead of the official awards ceremony to be held on 24^th March. Standing out amongst tough competition from hundreds of other exemplary applicants, STAR has been selected based on their ambition, visionary spirit and the demonstrable positive impact that their project has had on children, young people and their families living in some of the most deprived communities in Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland.

The collaborative project was initiated by the North East and North Cumbria Child Health and Wellbeing Network, whose vision is that all children and young people should be given the opportunity to flourish, reach their potential and be advantaged by organisations working together. The programme was developed in conjunction with Northern Ballet, and is being delivered by key regional partners, including frontline organisations, local primary schools, academic researchers, and the South Tees public health team.

Martin Wilson, Executive Director at TIN Arts comments, “We are delighted to have been shortlisted for ‘Most Impactful Project Addressing Health Inequalities’, recognising the collaborative efforts and dedication of the project team over the last twelve months to successfully implement STAR. We are committed to improving outcomes for children and young people, and to be chosen among the other incredible nominees is a wonderful achievement.  This nomination has been a tremendous boost for all project partners, and I am sure it will bolster our continued efforts to spread the success of the initiative to other under-served communities.”

Learn more about the STAR project in the launch announcement.

Photography by Ian Paine

Sexuality is often intimately bound with our identity. The experiences and support young people access on the physical and emotional aspects of sex can make a lasting impact on their health and wellbeing. Whether it’s understanding how to protect themselves from STIs to having someone to speak to about their emotional responses to intimate situations, engaging with impartial, confidential, and professional support can empower a lifetime of healthy, fulfilling relationships.

Children North East’s Sexual Health service team is committed to delivering an inclusive service that works hard to support diverse communities and provide sensitive, expert advice where it can add value to the lives of young people. In the last six months, through their work in schools, universities and youth settings, they have worked with 394 young people, including 322 who were new to the service.

A safe space for a difficult subject

The team creates safe, confidential spaces in which to explore the emotional side of sexual health alongside its traditional physical health support, which includes the C-Card scheme and STI testing. This approach plays an important role in the impact the team have for the young people they engage with. Trained to deliver workshops, assemblies, and one-to-one guidance on a wide range of issues impacting young people, they tackle themes as broad as healthy relationships, mental health, the law, online safety, pornography, sexual exploitation and sexting.

When we ask the young people about their experience of the sexual health service, the idea of safety crops up time and time again: “they gave us valuable information to keep us safe”, “I feel safer now”, “I finally felt confident opening up”.

Making sure we’re there for everyone

Routinely engaging the expertise of staff across the charity in specialist categories of support and collaborating with its diverse groups of young people, the team have been able to reach underserved communities and those with additional needs. Close links have been made with our LGBTQ+ youth support provision, delivering sexual health talks exploring themes they have shared are important to them. Similar approaches are currently being taken with neurodiverse young people accessing Children North East services and those living with a disability.

Our broader expertise in these areas enables us to signpost young people to additional services, such as peer mentoring or mental health support.

The background of young people can often impact their likelihood of engaging with a sexual health service and Children North East pursue pathways of connecting with those that may be harder to reach. Examples include collaborating with Black and Asian communities in the West End of Newcastle and the Chinese student population.

Feedback from the young people from these groups has been particularly inspiring, for example one university student from China reporting to the team, “It’s useful, it’s good it’s here”, before saying she would highlight the opportunity to her peers from China who had never previously accessed any service of this kind. Sometimes the feedback highlights the gravity of the issues some young people have or continue to face. Another student, who had recently moved to the UK from Poland, fed back to the team that she had never received any support of this kind previously, sharing that her country had recently passed a law abolishing abortion and that sexual health education and services were simply not available to ordinary people like her.

Accessible when young people need us

Our team are often one of the last lines of defence against choices that may have a longer lasting impact on a young person’s life if not dealt with, providing a convenient and discreet way of dealing with existing concerns. These include STI and pregnancy testing, helping them choose and access the right contraception, and supporting decision-making during pregnancy. One secondary school student who used our STI testing service commented, “I didn’t feel uncomfortable. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere else”. Another reported, “I probably wouldn’t have gotten one [a chlamydia test] if they weren’t here”. This can also extend to the team being on hand to help them pursue safe choices as they encounter new emotional experiences: “She explained really well, gave us time to ask questions and was very nice to me and my boyfriend”.

Victoria Tinning is an Attendance and Personal Coach at the Newcastle-based school Studio West. She asked our team to deliver a session for her students after becoming concerned about the lack of access to similar support during the COVID-19 lockdowns. She commented, “Sessions were brilliant and very informative. The drop-in sessions are great and the students seem to find this very useful and handy that you come into school, making the service more accessible.”

As the world around us changes, from the technologies we use to the way we reflect on gender as a society, so do the needs of young people. However, what remains the same is our commitment to listening to the experiences of young people, growing our support to address the challenges they face, and to give everyone access to services that contribute to a future of healthy, happy relationships.

Over the past three months, thousands of residents, commuters and visitors using Tynemouth Metro Station have found a surprise waiting for them.

At the heart of the beautiful station canopies, as travellers cross the iconic footbridge, a history of Children North East in the seaside town is on display to the public.

In collaboration with Vistry Partnerships and Mott MacDonald, the Tynemouth exhibition is part of the charity’s 130^th Anniversary celebrations and shares insights into the early beach trips of the 1890’s and its infamous Sandcastle Challenge.

The exhibition was thought up as a creative way to keep alive the legacy of the Sandcastle Challenge, which has been run for over 25 years, after the pandemic stopped it from going ahead in 2021. The annual Challenge usually sees over 1,700 children descend onto Tynemouth beach to show off their building skills and compete for a coveted trophy, with local businesses teaming up to provide a helping hand.

Hayley Bell, Social Value Coordinator at Vistry Partnerships, commented, “We have been proud supporters of the Challenge for the last eight years, so it felt important to work with Children North East to celebrate the Sandcastle Challenge during their Anniversary year. Vistry are passionate about playing an active role in local communities and it spoke to those values to remind people that the community is still here, even if we can’t be on the beach together building sandcastles.”

In the spirit of the challenge, schools were asked to build bridges, with the winning designs included as part of the exhibition display. Students from Broadway Junior School in Sunderland, Cotherstone Primary School in Barnard Castle and St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Jarrow took the top prizes.

One student commented, “We made solar panels to light up the bridge at dusk and at midnight, if anyone wanted to do a midnight bridge walk! It was really good fun making the bridge and we are very proud!”

Bridges were chosen for the challenge, not just because of the location of the exhibition, but because long-term supporters of the challenge Mott MacDonald are gearing up to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of another North East icon which they designed: The Tyne Bridge.

Leanne Nicholson, Business Development and Marketing Lead at Mott MacDonald, comments, “It’s been great to see students across the North East harness the spirit of Sandcastle Challenge by putting their problem-solving and creativity to the test in the bridge challenge. Mott MacDonald believe that the bright young minds of today will be the inventors and engineers of the future, which is why we choose to support organisations like Children North East, that work to give every child the best possible stat in life.”

If you would like to see the exhibition, it will be running until the end of January 2022 at Tynemouth Station footbridge.

Children North East celebrated our 130-year anniversary in 2022.

Children North East are pleased to share the appointment of two new leadership roles.

Meet our new Deputy Heads of services

Rachel Leslie has been appointed as Deputy Head of Youth Services and Poverty Proofing and Mandy Brown as Deputy Head of Families and Parenting. The two join our newly appointed Heads of services, and will help take our 2021 strategy forward, in collaboration of the Operations Director and Senior Leadership Team.

Rachel Leslie comes into post from her role as Youth Counselling Team Manager, in which she led our provision of counselling for young people aged 9 to 25 through a range of specialist programmes, such as NHS mental health provision, support for victims of crime and an innovative project utilising Minecraft. Mandy has spent nearly a decade leading services for families in North East communities, working in areas including child safeguarding, therapeutic support, domestic violence and help for families in crisis.

A new landscape of need for young people

As we enter 2022, we enter a new landscape of need for babies, children, young people and their families. The Youth Services and Poverty Proofing Team is faced with a context in which young people are facing significant difficulties. 37% of North East children live in poverty ¹, whilst one in six report a diagnosable health condition ² (two years ago this was one in eight). Bringing to life the scope of need for the team’s services, ‘in an average classroom, ten children will have witnessed their parents separate, eight will have experienced severe physical violence, sexual abuse or neglect, one will have experienced the death of a parent and seven will have been bullied’ ³.

Rachel Leslie comments, “I am thrilled to have been appointed as Deputy Head of Youth Services and Poverty Proofing. For the last 15 years, I have been privileged to witness the excellent work all of our teams at Children North East deliver to make a real difference in babies, children, young people and families’ lives.

“Working within Young Peoples Service, and in particular the counselling team, has allowed me to understand the growing complexity and needs children and young people face. This is an exciting time for Young Peoples Service and Poverty Proofing. I am passionate about the work we do and I am determined to strengthen and support the commitment Children North East have made to enable our vital work to continue.”

A helping hand for families in times of need

Whilst the Youth Services team supports young people to deal the impact of negative experiences and create new, positive ones, the Families and Parenting team are focused on giving babies and children the best possible start in life. In the year before the pandemic, there were 643,000 child social care referrals in the UK and almost 390,000 children were on CPPs at the beginning of 2021⁴.

These statistics cover a range of challenges that families may face and which can often be reduced with the right support. For example, 15% of babies do not have an emotional connection with a supportive and nurturing adult⁵, something our Little Minds in Mind therapeutic service can help new parents and carers to develop. Another example is the potential for new parents with a disability to be seen as a risk to their child. In this instance our can work closely with the family and CSC to ensure all possible pathways of support have been explored to keep them together.

Mandy shares, “Working within the Families and Parenting team at Children North East for nearly 9 years as a Team Manager, I have seen first-hand the incredible impact our services and support has on the lives babies, children and families in the North East.

“In my new role as Deputy Head of Families and Parenting, I will continue to work with such a passionate and dedicated team who continue to provide high quality support to babies, children and their families. I look forward to seeing the service grow and reach more people across our region with the helping hand they need to overcome what are often the most difficult moments in their lives or relationships.”

¹ https://www.nechildpoverty.org.uk/facts/

² https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/81/health-and-social-care-committee/news/159548/mental-health-services-for-children-and-young-people-risk-backward-slide/

³ https://mhfastorage.blob.core.windows.net/mhfastoragecontainer/b43d749d355eea11a811000d3ab82d69/Youth%20Two%20Day%20Statistics%2015012020.pdf?sv=2015-07-08&sr=b&sig=3g8G%2BpXpqfWtp8nUjF%2BqnMqQbKhDTniIxkSBSOCxwF0%3D&se=2021-12-16T17%3A31%3A45Z&sp=r

⁴ https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2021/11/04/number-of-children-in-need-falls-for-third-straight-year-to-lowest-point-since-2013/

⁵ https://parentinfantfoundation.org.uk/why-we-do-it/relationship-difficulties/

⁶ https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/2018/september/disabled-parents-often-seen-risk-their-children-rather-given-support-warns

As part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion, Children North East website visitors have access to a wide range of accessibility and language support tools to customise their digital experience.

The Recite Me assistive technology is available to those accessing our website through a desktop by selecting the TT button in the top right hand side of the screen (see image).

We pride ourselves on being an organisation that prioritises the accessibility of our support and services to as many people as possible and the Recite Me tool means that individual users can customise their web page in a way that works best for them.

The tool is designed to provide visual and audio solutions for individuals who experience:

• Visual impairment
• Language/linguistic problems (including non-English language speakers)
• Learning difficulties
• Literacy
• Attention disorders
• Mobility and physical impairments

The solutions it offers includes:

• Screen reading functionality
• Multiple reading aids
• An on-demand live translation feature that boasts over 100 languages
• Texts to speech options
• Styling options, including font size, type, and colour

A list of provided solutions, organised by reason a user may require them, is available on the Recite Me website. A comprehensive user guide is available online.

Why have we invested in assistive technology?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that only 1 in 10 people have access to the assistive technology they need, so it was important for us to provide easy access to our website information and services.

Being able to offer an inclusive experience is essential to support over 20% of the population who may encounter barriers when exploring our website.

WHO commented in 2021, “Assistive technology enables people to live healthy, productive independent, and dignified lives, and to participate in education, the labour market and civic life. Without assistive technology, people are often excluded isolated, and locked into poverty, thereby increasing the impact of disability on a person, their family, and society.”

If you want to speak to the team about the Recite Me tool or accessibility of our communications more generally, please contact [email protected].

Shoppers and diners at John Lewis Eldon Square will be treated to an exhibition of photographs from Children North East supporters, as a display of our photography competition winners goes up in-store this week!

The images of North East landscapes and wildlife were chosen from over 200 entries to be featured in our 2022 fundraising calendar, which is currently on sale from our online shop.

Situated on the second floor in the ‘The Place to Eat café, exhibition visitors will be treated to a mix of inspiring images. If you head down, expect to see snaps of our region’s beautiful coastline, close-ups of nature, and a snow-topped Jesmond Dene.

Winners of the photography competition were chosen by a team of judges, made up of Leigh Elliott, our Chief Executive; Denise Wray, Partnership and Community Coordinator at John Lewis & Partners; photographer James Fortune; and the FAB (Fabulous and Brilliant) Group, a collective of young people with disabilities who meet at our Young People Services.

Billie Jenkins, Marketing and Communications Manager at Children North East commented, “It has been very exciting to have John Lewis support our work by gifting us this fantastic space, which we are using to celebrate our supporters and share our fundraising work. We are incredibly grateful for our longstanding relationship with Denise and the team, who have been wonderful collaborators and champions of the charity.”

All proceeds from the 2022 calendar will support babies, children, young people through the most difficult circumstances.

If you can’t make it to the John Lewis Eldon Square store, you can view the winning photographs on our website, or order a copy of the calendar through our shop.