Sadiq Khan announces £8m funding to embed youth workers in emergency departments
Fiona Simpson
Friday, October 7, 2022
The Mayor of London has announced almost £8 million in funding to embed youth workers in A&E departments across London over the next three years.
Launching the £7.9m fund at King’s College Hospital, in south London, today (7 October), Sadiq Khan said the grant would be split over 12 centres with services provided by youth work organisations Redthread, St Giles Trust and Oasis.
The service enables youth workers to support young people, who present at A&E with injuries from involvement in violent crime, to move away from criminal activity.
The scheme was first launched at King’s College Hospital by Redthread in 2005 and has since expanded across eight A&E hospitals and four major trauma centres, in the capital with funding from the London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU).
The investment will also enable specialist youth workers to support young victims of domestic abuse and domestic violence in the four major trauma centres.
Data from London VRU shows that nearly 800 young people engaged with youth workers in A&E hospitals in the last two years.
Khan visited King’s College Hospital to meet with hospital A&E staff and youth workers from Redthread to hear first-hand about the impact of the partnership work they are doing to help and support young people.
He was joined by Martin Griffiths, a consultant trauma and vascular clinician and national clinical director for violence reduction for NHS England, to champion the joint work between City Hall and the NHS to tackle violence through prevention and early intervention.
Khan, said: “Overall, crime continues to fall in London, bucking the national trend, with knife crime with injury for under 25s and gun crime both down. However, it’s clear more needs to be done in partnership to continue making progress.
“Partnership work from prevention to enforcement is vital to tackling violence and the work my VRU does alongside the NHS and its violence reduction programme is a fantastic example of working together to identify opportunities to intervene early to divert young people and help them access positive life opportunities.”
Lib Peck, director of London’s VRU, added: “We firmly believe that violence is preventable, not inevitable.
“That outcome is based on partnership and is the foundation of the work we do alongside the NHS to tackle violence through prevention and early intervention.
“The VRU is a champion of youth work in our city and the invaluable role they play in a young person’s life. I’m looking forward to building on the progress made with new investment to back up our fantastic youth workers so they can continue making life-changing interventions.”
