Council Launches Reading Youth Health Champions Qualification
A COUNCIL run initiative to facilitate young people’s peer education and mentoring is launching this month.
Image ©Moyan Brenn
A new qualification, developed by the Royal Society for Public Health, has been specifically prepared for young people aged 14-25 to enable them to act as ‘health advisors’ to their peers. This can be in a variety of settings from schools, colleges, youth clubs and associations and young offender institutions.
Starting mid-February, the qualification gained is Level 2 (equivalent of GCSE Grades A-C) and involves a 1 day session covering four modules and one specialist module to deepen understanding of a specific aspect of health. Learners will explore how people fall into unhealthy practices; personal and social consequences of such involvement; and how to provide help and support to anyone who is currently engaged in any health damaging activities.
The young people then offer support to their peers by providing confidential signposting to specialist health professionals, by raising awareness of health issues through the delivery of health promotion campaigns and by acting as healthy role models in their communities.
The course will launch with students in Year 9 and 10 from Little Heath School in February. Further local schools will follow, with Reading Boys School and Highdown School both showing interest in the course.
Initially 10 students will attend the first course. These students will be seen as an asset to the borough and to their schools and be able to offer invaluable information and guidance to young people in their peer groups.
So far the Reading Community Alcohol Partnership has been successful in gaining £1,500 in funding to be able to offer this course free and if the pilot is successful, the aim will be to roll it out on a wider scale throughout the borough.
Cllr Graeme Hoskin, Reading’s Lead Member for Health, said: “Evidence suggests young people are more likely to seek advice from their peers, making Youth Health Champions a more effective way of getting health messages across.”
Cllr Tony Jones, Reading’s Lead Member for Education, said: “I’m delighted we can offer young people in Reading this worthwhile qualification. This is a great opportunity for the Youth Champions to gain qualifications and also enable them to appeal to other students, advise and signpost to services they would otherwise be unaware of.”
Derek Lewis, Chairman of Community Alcohol Partnerships, said: “Youth Health Champions is an exciting initiative that will not only contribute to the student’s confidence and personal development, but which will be more effective way of getting health messages across to other young people.”
