366 The ED young person’s wellbeing guide – a novel approach to psychosocial risk assessing children and young people in the emergency department

Abstract

Aims/Objectives/Background The 2019/20 RCEM National QIP 'Care of Children in the ED' recommends use of a recognised tool (eg HEEADSSS) to psychosocial risk assess 12-17 year olds seen in the ED. Northwick Park's ED team collaborated with the Young Harrow Foundation (YHF), a local charitable organisation, to coproduce the ED Young Person's Wellbeing Guide with the aim of addressing this standard whilst also meeting the needs of ED staff and the children and young people (CYP) that we care for. Methods/Design YHF's Change Champions, a dynamic group of local 15-25 year olds with lived experience of areas such as youth violence and mental health, worked with the ED team and fed back that they wouldn't necessarily expect (or welcome) ED staff enquiring about such personal topics (particularly if presenting with an unrelated issue) but valued access to reliable support and advice for themselves or their peers. ED staff, similarly, often felt awkward approaching such sensitive subjects with CYP if the presentation was with a seemingly unrelated complaint or when departmental pressures prohibited development of a meaningful doctor-patient rapport. The Wellbeing Guide was therefore coproduced to provide CYP with links to trusted sources of support (based on the HEEADSSS categories) as well as allowing the ED clinician to broach such conversations by asking whether any issues raised in the Guide resonated with the young person and whether further support or advice was required. Results/Conclusions The Wellbeing Guide will be piloted, and offered to all 12-17yo's attending the ED, in the next few weeks. Using an iterative approach the document will be further developed through feedback from CYP. We are also developing a complementary document containing links to resources for parents concerned about their child. We aspire to an online version of both documents, accessible via the Trust's website, in the next few months.