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HOSPITAL YOUTH WORK: Through the pain barrier

5 mins read
A hospital isn't a place normally associated with youth workers. But Graham Readfearn discovers that youth work can help young people at a time when they are likely to be experiencing increased stress and anxiety.

Benham-Ruth is one of two, soon to be three, youth work team members at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, and is one of probably fewer than 10 youth workers based in UK hospitals. But the number is growing and the issues she deals with on a daily basis, such as the one above, will be familiar to those who work with young people.

Hospitals are not the easiest of places to be at the best of times, but for adolescents the wards can be intimidating and solitary.

When that experience is combined with illness or injury and the normal growing pains that adolescents have to cope with, the result can be a young person who very much needs a shoulder to cry on, or a youth worker to talk to.

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