A VOICE OF HOPE IN YOUR HOSPITAL

Every day, around 800 people across the UK attend A&E because they are experiencing a mental health crisis. For many young people, the distress they are experiencing makes it difficult to fully engage with assessment or treatment. Alongside clinical care, they need time, reassurance and compassionate support to help them feel calmer, safer and better able to engage.

How Emerge Helps

Emerge Advocacy provides trained Youth Support Workers who support young people aged 10-25 attending A&E due to self-harm, suicide attempt or mental health crisis.
We offer compassionate, emotional support, helping young people feel calmer, heard and better able to engage with their care. Unlike many hospital based services, Emerge is often able to extend support into the community after discharge, bridging the gap to other services and reducing hospital readmission.

Through our ‘Emerge Local’ programme, we are working to bring a voice of hope everywhere it’s needed across England, Wales and Scotland. We are doing this by working with local churches to set up Emerge Local projects according to our evidenced-based model, underpinned by our robust suite of training, ongoing support and quality assurance.

We are ready and able to partner with hospital trusts and ICBs supporting the government’s roll-out of Mental Health Emergency Departments and Community Based Mental Health Centres across England. If your hospital isn’t on their list don’t worry, it can still be on ours!

2025 STATS

Over 1,000 Young People Supported
Working in 12 NHS hospitals in the UK
4.8 Average star rating from young people out of 5
68.6% lower crisis re-admissions rate, compared with national average
“Emerge Advocacy provides an outstanding service to children, young people, and young adults…
Their contribution to the wellbeing of some of our most vulnerable patients has been both significant and enduring.”
Mental Health & Learning Disability Lead Frimley Health NHS FT

Our Offer

We partner with NHS Trusts to provide:

  • Trained volunteer Youth Support Workers in A&E
  • Evening and weekend cover
  • Leveraging community stakeholders for volunteering and community-based support
  • Recruitment, training, supervision and safeguarding managed by Emerge
  • Fully insured and clinically integrated service

Benefits for Young People

Our Youth Support Workers help young people to:

  • Feel calmer during times of crisis.
  • Feel heard and understood without judgement.
  • Reduce anxiety and emotional distress while in hospital.
  • Build confidence and hope for the future.
  • Better understand and communicate their needs to clinical staff.
  • Access continued support after discharge, helping them recover in the community

Benefits for NHS teams

  • Gives staff more time to focus on clinical care
  • Provides one-to-one emotional support at no cost to the trust
  • Helps de-escalate distress and reduce risk
  • Supports communication between young people and clinicians
  • Improves patient experience
  • Provides continuity of care, post-discharge

  • Reduces crisis readmission

Ready to bring Hope to your hospital?

FAQs

Complete our expression of interest form above and this will be reviewed by our Emerge Local development team.

We’ll be in touch to learn more about your setting and discuss possibilities before working with you to hold a meeting with key stakeholders in your trust.

We’ll engage with local churches and networks to begin building your Emerge Local team.

If all parties are keen to progress, we will proceed to the set-up phase which includes governance, comms and team onboarding. We can walk you through all of this when the time comes.

The cost of starting an Emerge Local project is small and would be funded by a local church or group of churches who come together with Emerge Advocacy and create a new charity to run the local project. Churches commit to funding this cost, with subsidy from us. Over time, grants and donations can bolster the project, increasing its capacity and reach.

The hospital would need to identify a member of staff (clinical or management) who agrees to be the Link Person with the Emerge Local project. This is a key role in helping the project embed, to dovetail with A&E and paediatric admission processes, resolve practical issues, to raise the profile of the project and make connections with other key staff.

The Link Person would help draw together other key staff members to form an Advisory Group, who would meet with Emerge fortnightly or monthly during the set up phase and post-launch before reducing to quarterly. This group’s function is to support the project to dovetail with hospital procedures and pathways, to approve policies and procedures sending these to relevant colleagues for sign off when necessary, and to guide and facilitate the effective setup and running of the work.

The Emerge Local team members need to be authorised to be on-site and have ID etc. This can be done through the hospital volunteering department or through an MOU where the hospital agrees to accept confirmation of Emerge’s own safer recruitment process which means they do not need to run their own.

It will be important for all relevant hospital staff to know about the service and how to refer. We’ll provide all the resources for this, the hospital will just need to support and circulate these, and give opportunity for us to present to staff huddles or meetings where possible.

To make sure patients know about the support on offer, we’ll display publicity to be displayed in relevant areas.

We will provide the SOP and Safeguarding Policy, along with any other documents needed. These will need to be signed off by the relevant governance lead or meeting, depending on your organisational structure.

We would work towards a jointly agreed start date. All relevant clinical staff would receive information via their managers about the Emerge project and how to refer young people.

Emerge would visit relevant departments to meet staff and reinforce the message about the launch and how to refer.

Emerge would place leaflets, posters etc in patient areas to advertise the service.

The hospital’s Link Person with Emerge will be the go-to person for staff who had a question or concern and the point of contact within the hospital for the Emerge Local project.

There will be a named member of the Emerge Local team as a point of contact, and a designated member of Emerge’s leadership team.

The Advisory Group would continue to meet quarterly as a forum for review and future planning.

It is beneficial if Emerge can would need to be given a standing slot in staff training for nurses, doctors and A&E receptionists to train them in the role of Emerge, correct referral process and to maintain the profile of the project in their minds to maximise referrals.

Emerge exists to help young people engage with the assessment and care they need, helping them navigate the process, amplifying their voice and empowering them to take the next steps they need. As such, we work collaboratively with all other professionals involved, and understand the importance of appropriate boundaries and proactive communication.

Emerge is there to bring care and compassion indiscriminately.

Whilst we are motivated by our Christian faith, Emerge does not discuss matters of faith with young people unless the young person initiates it. If a young person does wish to speak about spiritual matters, our priority is to listen. We never impose our own views but would share them if asked about them.

Emerge’s team always values the individual and the journey that person is on, irrespective of their beliefs or choices, we will listen and support them without judgement.

We are a Christian charity and operate through partnering with local churches to provide the service. We never discriminate in the way we provide our services, and our support is open to young people from all ethnicities, backgrounds and world-views. Our identity as a charity enables us to provide holistic care, and to keep carrying hope, no matter what.