Teen health clinic hopes to expand due to demand
BBCA teen clinic which allows young people to speak to health professionals without an appointment is hoping to expand to meet demand.
The sessions in Daventry in Northamptonshire have run monthly since November 2022 and have seen 431 young people.
Those attending can see a GP, school nurse or school counsellor as well as mental health and sexual health teams and local charities.
Dr Sarah Tudor said the drop-in Teen Clinic Daventry was intended for young people to "ask anything that they wanted to ask".
Although some health professionals work in the clinic voluntarily, the service is financially supported by Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust, charities MIND and Service Six, and has project management support from Daventry Town Council
Organisers have now applied for a grant from West Northamptonshire Council's Community Investment Fund to increase the frequency of the clinics to twice a month.
Tudor told BBC Radio Northampton's Annabel Amos: "Overall we've got busier and there's now a pretty consistent footfall in the teen clinic and the feedback is always 'can we have more of these?'"
'You know the community'
School counsellor Gill Harvey said the clinic "has just come along at the right time" after the Covid-19 pandemic affected young people's mental health.
"A lot of the young people that come through our clinic, I know them already from school, which is fantastic, and we do lots of referrals from school to the teen clinic," she said.
Summer Barge, a school nurse in West Northamptonshire, said her work in school and at the clinic covered a wide variety of health issues.
"We're specialist public health community nurses. We do sleep, continence, diet, emotional health, sexual health advice, we cover a big holistic amount for children, families, parents," she said.
"Our referrals, you can imagine, are quite complex and cover a lot."
She is also a former Daventry school pupil which she said helped because "you know the community".
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