Are Young People Surviving or Thriving?

The state of young people’s mental health has assumed enormous significance and was the focus of Young Solutions 2017 Annual General Meeting (AGM) on October 12th. The AGM’s keynote speaker was Sarah Dugan, Chief Executive of Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, and she told those attending about the work the Trust was undertaking to support and improve young people’s mental well-being. She listed and described the services being offered and spoke about the opportunities that allow young people to shape mental health services. She outlined the way the Trust was applying the feedback from young people and said the Trust was using various types of media to engage young people.

The AGM also heard from Dr Ben Rogers, Service Lead for Psychological Interventions for the Heath and Care Trust. He described the online mental health service called KOOTH and another young-people-centred emotional well-being service entitled Reach4 Wellbeing. He spoke of the importance of securing good mental health as well as addressing the needs of young people with mental ill health and mentioned the five steps to mental wellbeing – Connect; Be Active; Keep Learning; Give to Others and Be Mindful.

Young Solutions 2017 AGM was kindly hosted by Fortis Living and their Executive Director, Clare Jackson opened the AGM by describing Fortis’s commitment to young people and the range of services and activities they extend to younger people. She gave an example of how some young tenants had worked with staff at Fortis to set up a community based video company and how they had won awards for their work.

The AGM was compered by two members of Worcestershire’s Youth Cabinet, Adam Lawless and Nina Reid. Their efforts were outstanding in introducing the various speakers and ensuring the evening stayed on course. The official business of the AGM was led by Young Solutions chairman of trustees Michael Hunter. He dealt with the apologies, minutes of the previous AGM and presented the accounts for 2016/17 as well as the annual report. He thanked the trustees for their work over the past year and announced three trustees had stepped down – Maggie Collins, Victoria Cooper and Natalie McVey , but two new trustees had been nominated – Steve Tominski and Sue Rogers. He also said Geoff Taylor-Smith and John Duddington had been re-elected.

Young Solutions’ AGM provides a platform for youth organisations to make presentations and this year AXIS Youth Hub and Worcestershire Youth Cabinet made contributions around the theme of mental wellbeing. Cat Bennett from AXIS Youth Hub said this was a partnership initiative that offered young people informal and open access support if they had mental or emotional difficulties while two members of the youth cabinet spoke about the work they had been doing to raise awareness of young people and mental health. Phil Street, the Manager of Young Solutions and Cat Illingworth its Service Development Manager closed the AGM with a summary of Young Solutions work in 2016/17. Phil Street announced his imminent retirement from Young Solutions and welcomed the newly appointed Chief Officer, Pete Sugg.