Listen Up - Social Welfare Portal

listenup!110 | Case Study 7Case Study 7:Streetwise, NewcastleMission statement“We believe that young people have a right to highquality professional services that are responsive totheir needs, promote their wellbeing and activelyseek to be accessible and open to all young people.”Overview of the serviceStreetwise is an open access service used eachyear by over 6,500 young people aged between11 and 25. It was set up in 1991 when two youthworkers found that young homeless people in thecentre of Newcastle were not accessing healthservices. The focus of the project was to move awayfrom the medical model of service and provide anapproachable, integrated service to the vulnerableyoung people who were being failed by the existingsystem. Initial funding for the service was providedby the local health authority, with some additionalfunding from Comic Relief and the Tudor Trust.Today, the focus of the work lies within three keyareas: mental health; sexual health; and drug andalcohol misuse. In addition, the service offersadvice and information on housing, debt, benefits,training/education and careers. The majority ofStreetwise services are delivered from the citycentre premises, but the project does have anextensive outreach programme working withschools, providing counselling and sessions ondrug and alcohol misuse. Preventative work suchas smoking cessation and the condom distributionscheme is combined with counselling and othercrisis interventions, with the aim of offering acomplete service that caters to all the needs ofyoung people.Service development work carried out as partof the Mental Health Foundation projectThirty-three percent of counselling sessions run byStreetwise involve work with self-harm. Work hastherefore been focused on developing servicesfor young people who self-harm or have suicidalthinking. Streetwise has forged strong links withthe Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services’(CAMHS) self-harm team, working with them andaccepting regular referrals of young people toStreetwise for longer-term work. Streetwise hasdeveloped a self-harm and suicide risk assessmenttool which incorporates a therapeutic actionplanning process for the young person.Streetwise has also worked in partnerships withCAMHS and Newcastle Social Services in providingoutreach services to 90 unaccompanied minorand young refugees in Newcastle. This, alongsideother work at Streetwise with Black and MinorityEthnic (BME) groups, aims to ensure that the serviceproactively targets young people from a range ofbackgrounds.Service catchment areaStreetwise will accept any young person who is ableto travel to its location in the centre of Newcastle.The majority of young people are from Newcastle,although clients do travel from the surrounding areasof Gateshead, Northumberland and North Tyneside.ReferralsReferrals are accepted from any source, whethervoluntary or statutory agencies, families, carers, or theyoung person themselves.Referral details in January-March 2006In this period, 75 young people were referred to theStreetwise counselling service. Of these, 36% selfreferred, while 15% were referred by their families.Referrals from statutory services accounted for40% of young people, while 9% were referred byvoluntary agencies.