A new report by the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) says that personalising care plans, and offering individual budgets to access opportunities to study and build positive relationships, can improve a young person’s mental health, life chances and wellbeing in ways that clinical services cannot always achieve.
Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds face a range of significant barriers to accessing support, the report says. They often lack awareness of the options open to them, and digital poverty can restrict their access to opportunities.
Children told the NCB that a flexible and individualised package of support worked best to reduce loneliness and isolation; improve access to education and training, and provide practical help. Personal health budgets enabled them to access items and or experiences which young people from socially deprived backgrounds would otherwise not be able to afford.
The NCB says that children and young people particularly value a long-term, trusted relationship with a support worker who can coordinate holistic and integrated care so that their complex and overlapping needs can be met.