Hospital-based Support

Youth Workers bringing a voice of hope to people aged 10-25 attending A&E because of self-harm, a suicide attempt or an emotional crisis.

Our Hospital-based Support is for young people aged 10-25, who find themselves in A&E because they are struggling with self-harm, are feeling suicidal or experiencing an emotional crisis.

This support may look like playing a simple game, doing some colouring, or having an open-ended chat to make a dark time feel a little brighter. It’s totally up to the young person whether or not they’d like a member of our team to spend time with them.

This support is non-clinical and does not replace the support of the NHS or any other service. Our purpose is to provide time during young people’s admission at hospital, where we Relieve, Listen, Encourage and Advocate.

Relieve

We aim to help young people calm down to a place of peace in what can be a very stressful environment. This could be through a chilled chat, fun simple games or calming activities.

“It was so lovely to have someone come in and chat and make me feel a bit more normal. It made me feel much more at ease for the rest of the evening so thank you so much.”

Listen

We are here to listen to young people in their time in hospital. We can have a chilled, supportive chat, about whatever they want – from what brought them to hospital, to what they watch on TV.

“It was really nice to chat to someone and get what’s inside out.” “She was really nice and supportive. She listened and understood without judging.”

Encourage

We carry a voice of hope, working to build young people up and empower them to see their own value and potential. We aim to meet them where they’re at, with no agenda.

“They have really helped me believe in myself and find the reasons I needed to stay. They were always there to support me and guide me along the right path I needed to help myself.”

Advocate

We can help young people make sense of the clinical system they’ve found themselves in, and think about what may be most helpful for them going forwards.

“She really helped me validate to myself that I was in pain and it was okay to ask for help. She asked the Dr or nurse something when my anxiety wouldn’t allow it.”

If you are in hospital and would like to access this support, or if you are a parent or professional asking on behalf of a young person…

We are not a crisis line. If You need immediate support in a crisis moment, please call 999 or go to your nearest Hospital A&E

We reliably see a marked reduction in young people’s levels of distress after our hospital-based support…

We ask young people to rate their emotional temperature at the start and end of our time with them in hospital, with 10 being ‘HELP!’ and 1 being ‘things are cool’. On average, young people’s emotional temperature reduces from an 8 down to a 4.

Learn more about our support…

Before we see a young person, we provide them with the following information about who we are and how we use their data before we see them…

We are run in partnership with local churches. We exist for the support of young people of all faiths and non. However, we are more than happy to offer prayer, if a young person would like this just ask.

We are non-clinical, meaning we do not assess young people or make decisions about what should happen in their physical or mental health care.

Anything a young person talks to us about remains within Emerge as an organisation, unless we need to share information to keep you or someone else safe. Our team always make every effort to ensure the young person knows if we need to share something, and discuss who and how they would like that information passed on.

After we support young people, we take notes about the discussion. This is so that our team can refresh our memories if we support the young person again. These notes are kept securely at all times.

Also after we offer support to young people, we may share brief feedback with our team members. This provides streamlining of support given, and can help our team members to access advice and support .

If a young person would like to share a contact number with us, the we can directly offer follow up support and get feedback for our service. This is always optional and will be stored securely alongside the data from our hospital support.

We keep records of all the young people we support until they turn 26 in case we see them again. This means recording your name, the date we first spoke to you, and a brief summary of our contact with you which are kept in a password protected document. We also use anonymised records to help us identify trends and patterns.