CONNECT Project Report
‘Connect’ project in hospitals reduces violence and demand on public services
A new report reveals youth workers in emergency departments helped over 1,400 young people escape violence and exploitation in one year.
The report, published today by the NI Executive’s programme on Paramilitarism and Organised Crime, evaluates the Education Authority-led CONNECT project which was undertaken by Dr Colm Walsh of Queen’s University Belfast, and points to the potential for the approach to further reduce youth violence and demands on hard-pressed critical care services.
Youth workers based in two Emergency Departments (EDs) engage and support vulnerable young people aged 15-25 when they arrive in hospitals. They are often very vulnerable and many of them are repeat attenders to the ED. The youth workers use what is called a ‘teachable moment’ to engage with them at these critical moments and then provide mentoring support, helping young people access the right support in the community. This allows the medical teams to focus on other clinical issues and reduces the chances that the young people will return to the emergency department again. The report, which includes anonymous case studies and feedback from the people involved, highlights the complex needs of many young people which, if left unaddressed, can make them more vulnerable to violence and criminal exploitation.
Dr Colm Walsh said of the project that “the impact of programmes such of these could be even wider than the ED. We need to stop thinking and operating in silos and recognise that if we fail to address vulnerabilities early on, it has a wider societal impact. This is socially and economically costly.” This is reflected in the data with almost half (49%) of the young people supported had contact with the justice system in the three months prior to engaging with CONNECT and the report shows there is a correlation between the number of Emergency Department presentations and police contacts, implying that pressure on one system is mirrored by pressure on another.
Key to the project’s success is the fact that CONNECT is staffed by professionally qualified youth workers, as ‘they not only know how to engage vulnerable youth but have an intimate understanding of the community context and resources that could be tapped into as a means of supporting these young people in a more sustainable way.’
To read the CONNECT report, which is titled: ‘A relational, youth work hospital-based violence intervention programme in Northern Ireland’, please visit the Ending the Harm website.
