On 31^st October PHE together with key partners will be leading a week of action focussing on children and young people (5-19). During this exciting week we really want to emphasise the importance of this specific time in a child’s life, recognise how we can make a difference and shine a light on the amazing work school nurses and key partners are undertaking.

There is an abundance of evidence highlighting the importance of support during the early years and setting down strong foundations. It is essential that we continue to recognise the importance of early support and delivery of evidence based public health interventions for children and young people (5-19). During the school-age years children and young people are exposed to many challenges which can adversely affect their health and well-being, clearly this will impact of their life chances as they make the journey through to adulthood. PHE have been working with a number of stakeholders including school nurses and indeed children and young people themselves to extend the existing early years 4-5-6 model to encapsulate 5-19. The new 4-5-6 model (5-19) focusses on the 6 high impact areas for school nursing and how using the existing key contacts the profession can make the biggest difference and improve outcomes. The 6 high impact areas are:

During this chat we want to hear from school nurses and partners, we want you to tell us;

• Why children and young people matter – what’s your unique contribution?
• How are you using your leadership role to influence locally?
• Does prevention yield return on investment and how do we measure this?
• What’s working locally and how this relates to the high impact areas?
• How the HIAs can influence commissioning and delivery locally?
• How you are engaging young people locally?

We do hope you will join us to make this a vibrant discussion in what will be an exciting week - it’s a great opportunity to share your views, good practice and generally celebrate all things school nursing, public health and importantly – children and young people. So add the date to the calendar, bring along a friend and get ready to share……