Fact Sheets
Children and young people’s health
Improving children’s health is important for everyone – families, communities and Government.
Having a healthy childhood allows children and young people to make the most of their opportunities in life. Poor health (physical, emotional and mental) can be a barrier to enjoying life and fulfilling potential.
The Children's Plan Commitment
The Children’s Plan made a commitment to publish a children and young people’s health strategy in 2008.
The strategy will be developed by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Health and will consider how health services can work better to improve children’s health working with schools and other partners.
During the Children’s Plan consultation children, young people and their parents gave us their views on what health issues they see as most important.
These views reflected what the health issues are for children of different ages:
- 0-7 year olds: there is a key role for health visitors e.g. to give information to new parents when their baby is born to help them cope with the challenges
- 8-13 year olds: children need to take more responsibility for their own health and need education to help them deal with peer pressure
- 14-19 year olds: sexual health, mental health and substance misuse (e.g. drugs and alcohol) are important areas where health information and treatment for teenagers is important
The Children’s Plan responded to this
with a commitment to:
- More support for parents, including better information e.g. building on the ‘red book’ on children’s health that every parent receives when their child is born
- Investment of £225 million in safe places to play including 30 new supervised play parks for 8-13 year olds in disadvantaged areas
- A review of the primary curriculum in schools so that it supports the development of social and emotional skills and a review of mental health services for children and adolescents.
There was also a very clear message in
the consultation about the importance
of families in supporting children and
young people’s health with parents
having responsibility for things like:
- Food and exercise
- A healthy environment for their children (e.g. not smoking)
- Teaching their children hygiene
- Setting a good example
However, parents also said that they
need support to help them in this role.
In particular:
- Prompt access to health services when they are needed
- Easy access e.g. a single point of contact and information to ‘navigate’ services.
Questions
The Department is interested to hear your views on the questions below. If you would like to feed in your comments to this continuing dialogue, please email your responses, stating which fact sheet and which question you are answering, to timetotalk.feedback@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk.
- Why good health matters for children and young people.
- The biggest challenges for keeping children and young people healthy.
- How satisfied are you with the healthcare facilities available in your area?
- How could these services be improved so that they meet the needs of children, young people and their families?
