15th March 2021
The Royal Victoria Hospital Emergency Department in partnership with the Southern Trust have launched a new website to help support young people with a wide range of issues they might be experiencing, including mental health, drugs and alcohol, problems at home and bullying.
The idea for the website came after the team introduced a pilot scheme to introduce an assessment tool in A&E for doctors and nurses to use when a young person presents to the Emergency Department with possible mental health issues. The HEEADSSS strategy is the tool that is used to assess the risk to the young person and to help staff make decisions about what services they might need referred on to.
The team felt that there was a wealth of information available online which meant it could often be difficult for young people to find the support they were looking for and therefore decided to create a website which would detail services available to young people on a variety of issues. Young people can access a range of resources relating to numerous issues such as mental health, drugs and alcohol, problems at home and bullying.
It is hoped that the website will offer young people the options of accessing support services in their home and community before they reach a crisis point. The site launched a week ago and has already been very successful with over 1,000 hits in a week. It is hoped that with continued success the initiative could be rolled out across the region.
Watch the video below to find out more about how the website was developed and how it hopes to help. You can access the website at: www.youngpeopleni.org.