Agenda item

Report ACH23-015

The Board considered a report providing an update on the Children’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA).

The JSNA for children and young people in Bromley was the second update of this JSNA. The first JSNA for children was written in 2016 and updated in 2018. It was due to be updated in 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The JSNA aimed to pull together all information available about the health and wellbeing of children and young people in Bromley using data and information from across the Council, health partners, and the Police.

The Consultant in Public Health Medicine advised Board Members that information was gathered from a survey of Year 10 pupils, run by the School Health Education Unit (SHEU). The survey was reported to provide comparative national and local data, and subgroup analysis was also undertaken to provide each school with its own individual report. This survey was used to generate the potential key issues as reported in the Bromley Children’s JSNA 2022:

-  Particularly vulnerable groups of young people in Bromley: young carers and young people who were LGBTQ/Transgender;

-  Increasing levels of vaping in children and young people in Bromley;

-  Sexual harassment rates higher in Bromley than national rates;

-  Relatively high rates of substance misuse in CLA compared to national rates; and,

-  Majority of young people in Year 10 worried about knives at least sometimes when they went out.

In response to a question, the Chairman advised that the Children, Education and Families Policy Development and Scrutiny Committee led on this area and the Children’s JSNA had been presented at a recent meeting. The Consultant in Public Health Medicine emphasised that, overall, the JSNA was a positive document – for the vast majority, the children and young people of Bromley were extremely healthy and well. The few issues highlighted were where Bromley was an outlier compared to other areas, and were mostly emerging trends. The Chairman asked if there was any comparable data available. The Consultant in Public Health Medicine advised that the SHEU data provided an average across England, but it may be possible to request comparison data for statistical neighbours. It was agreed that comparison data for similar boroughs would be requested and circulated to Board Members following the meeting.

In response to questions, the Consultant in Public Health Medicine advised that the individual schools received a copy of their own data – they knew their pupils well, and may be able to better identify specific issues. The issues identified relating to young carers was an emerging need – it was noted that there were a series of questions used to identify students as young carers, and they may not necessarily identify themselves as such. It was hoped that the SHEU survey would be repeated next spring (2024) – after the periods of lockdown, schools had struggled with a number of issues, such as lack of maturity and poor behaviour, and it was hoped that some of these issues would have settled down. The Assistant Director for Integrated Commissioning informed Board Members that work was taking place to create a new Carers Strategy, which would be brought to the Adult Care and Health Policy Development and Scrutiny Committee later in the year, and included young carers. Through Adult Social Care assessments they were able to refer young carers on to Carers Centre, run by Bromley Well and Children’s Services, for support, but it was acknowledged that work to identify young carers was something that could be further developed.

A Member said it would be useful to have a breakdown of the types of sexual harassment, as this could inform the training and prevention tools used to tackle this issue. The Consultant in Public Health Medicine advised that after each of the SHEU surveys, they had identified areas for which they would like more specific data – the SHEU would then provide a bank of questions, which were vetted by experts and Headteachers to decide which ones were used.

A Member noted the relatively high rates of substance misuse in CLAs, and highlighted the corporate responsibility that lay with Elected Members. In response to a question, the Consultant in Public Health Medicine advised that Children’s Social Care and the CLA Team were aware of the data, which had been discussed at length. It was noted that the figures were very small as only a small proportion of CLA’s were teenagers – Public Health produced the JSNA, however this particular issue was being picked up by the Corporate Parenting Board.

The Chairman highlighted that the increasing levels of vaping in children and young people was worrying as this was extremely addictive and had high levels of nicotine. A Board Member agreed, and considered that this was impacted by the marketing technique used. It was suggested that work needed to be done within the borough to instruct large supermarkets to keep vaping displays behind the serving counter. The Consultant in Public Health Medicine advised that work was being undertaken with Trading Standards which it was hoped may help to address some of these issues. A bid had been submitted, and if successful, would be used for work in the community to discourage vaping.

The Chairman thanked the Consultant in Public Health Medicine for the update to the Board.

RESOLVED that the update be noted.