Life Hacks

Funded as one of four pilot projects by the Department for Health and Social Care to deliver the Youth Social Prescribing Pilot Programme in four English towns/cities in 2018. It is aimed at children and young people from age 11 to 19 years who would benefit from additional support to improve their social, emotional, or physical health and wellbeing.

A dedicated Link Worker provides each young person with support and coordinates access to different activities in the community for up to 12 weeks, including physical activity, social or support groups, creative groups, education or training opportunities, or advice from specialist services. The aim is to improve their health and wellbeing, social connectedness and have a positive impact on their life chances. 

There is a common misperception that social prescribing is for adults only: there is no such thing as adult social prescribing as social prescribing is for all ages, including young people, without restrictions.

In every community, there are services and activities set up to meet a range of social, physical and emotional needs. Some are statutory but the majority are run on small shoestring budgets by the voluntary and community sector.

The organisers have little time and money for advertising, so most promotion is by word of mouth. Therefore, some of the most vulnerable young people, those who need timely help most, simply do not find their own way to these organisations and their activities. They may also have already experienced many setbacks in their lives so the lack confidence that help is available, making it more challenging to engage them. 

Youth social prescribing is a highly effective tool at tackling these challenges. A young person can be referred by a teacher, a GP, a school nurse, a community safety officer or any other frontline professional, to a dedicated Youth Link Worker. The Youth Link Worker will spend time, often over several weeks, getting to know the young person, without an agenda. Their conversations will be about what matters most to that young person. Together, they will identify sources of support in the local community and the Youth Link Worker will refer the young person to the relevant Locally Trusted Organisation. Most importantly, they will stay in touch to make sure the young person is settling in and is okay.

In March 2021, Life Hacks won the Social Prescribing Network and College of Medicine Awards for the Best Children and Young People Social Prescribing Project.

Life Hacks was one of four pilot projects funded by the Department for Health and Social Care in 2018 (Brighton & Hove, Luton, Sheffield & Southampton) that sought to establish the viability of a youth social prescribing model which could be rolled out more widely. Collectively, the pilots demonstrated a significant return on investment (SROI), at £5.04 for every £1 spent, compared with an average SROI of £2.30 for adult social prescribing schemes. [1] 

Evidence from the Life Hacks and the pilot programme indicates that the young people who find their own way to these groups, value them enormously. They trust the people running them and seek many kinds of help: from ways to get active and healthy, to meeting new people, to getting advice with debt or difficult relationships, or even help into their first job. This often is the critical help and support a young person requires and can have a transformative at a key point in an adolescent’s life. 

Key impacts include:

• Mental wellbeing improved significantly, particularly for those who had the lowest levels at baseline.
• Loneliness declined for the group most in need 
  Improved their sense of autonomy, reduced their sense of ‘stigma’ around mental health challenges.
• Providing mental health service provision with almost immediate access to non-clinically based emotional support.

Life Hack continues to run successfully today.

Based on the pilot programme, StreetGames was established as the national lead organisation for Youth Social Prescribing. It founded the Social Prescribing Youth Network (SPYN). Its ambition is that every Primary Care Network in England should have at least one Link Worker dedicated to working with children and young people. The network continues to grow and now has over 1000 members, including Link Workers, voluntary and community organisations, social prescribing coordinators, commissioners, funders, GPs, youth workers, police officers, teachers and researchers. 

NHS England & NHS Improvement (NHSE&I) commissioned the Social Prescribing Youth Network to develop a proposal for ‘youth social prescribing’ to help build an all-age model of social prescribing. In 2023, StreetGames published a new Social Prescribing Toolkit to support professionals to provide innovative support for children and young people in the shape of youth social prescribing.

The pilot indicated that social prescribing focused on young people is particularly effective in supporting the most disadvantaged groups of young people, and those who experienced the lowest levels of personal wellbeing. To grow and sustain children and youth social prescribing, leadership, alongside more support and guidance is required to ensure increased profile and understanding, growth in young person provision and quality provision.

Programme Lead (Social Prescribing Youth Network): [email protected]