Youth Engagement at the HBSC Conference

Youth engagement was a key element of the recent Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) conference. Youth delegates from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Canada attended the conference in St Andrews between 18^th and 21^st June. Six youth delegates from England travelled up to Scotland; Maddie, Holly and Kathryn from Bedford Modern School and Claudia, Aminah and Sophie from Hitchin Girls School.

On the first day of the conference the youth delegates co-presented a scientific paper on the topic of bullying with Professor Fiona Brooks (University of Hertfordshire), Professor John Freeman (Queen’s University, Canada) and the Canadian youth delegates. The girls also attended a number of seminars, in which they actively encouraged and contributed to the debate through well informed questions and comments. On the second day the youth delegates presented their perspectives on health to the whole conference of 250 delegates; the England team focused primarily on the topics of body image and family communication. After their presentation they invited questions from the audience, which they proceeded to answer with a great sense of insight and awareness. Throughout the second day, the girls also interviewed a number of the conference delegates on their views surrounding youth engagement within research.  They talked to delegates from across Europe and Canada, including representatives from The Scottish Government, The World Health Organisation and NICE England. 

Above: Presenting to the conference delegates on the topic of body image.

The youth delegates were excellent ambassadors for young people, and the views they expressed were both insightful and applicable to the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. The young people’s participation within the conference highlighted the importance and benefit of including young people within the study. Candace Currie, the International Co-ordinator of HBSC, said, “It was great to witness the power of youth participation. I was really impressed with the potential for a different kind of dialogue and engagement with young people as stakeholders in research.”

 

Above: Our fantastic youth delegates from England!

For more information about youth engagement within HBSC England check out our other blog posts: "Involving the people that matter: A day with our young researchers" and "Youth Participation".

 

Kayleigh Chester

 

 

 

 

 

Are the youth of today really as lazy as the media suggest?

(This is a guest post by Joe Wilson who is currently doing an internship with HBSC England)

The last national report for HBSC England shows that only about a third of 11 year old boys, and less than a fifth of 11 year old girls, meet the recommended levels of physical activity. Participation in physical activity decreases with age, so by the time they hit 15 years of age even fewer young people meet the recommended target of at least one hour per day (Brooks et al. 2011). It seems to be common knowledge that children and adolescents are considered to be lazy by media outlets and wider society in general. An example of this can be quoted from Broers (2010) who suggests that young people are ‘probably lazier than ever before’. They go on to say that ‘teens do struggle with pulling themselves off the couch, just as much as they did 20 years ago. But in today’s world there is much more keeping them sitting’. This article will look at the way in which the media portrays young people of today in terms of their declining exercise rates and will look to offer reasons as to why this is the case.

Whilst doing a scan of the immediate media outlets, it is evident to see a clear pattern of negativity towards young people in terms of their exercise rates and general laziness. CBC News (2011) suggests that in Canada, only 7% of young people aged between 6 and 19 participated in enough exercise to be able to see the health benefits. This goes to show that exercise rates have been decreasing in recent years and media agencies have been picking up on such statistics in order to label the youth of today as ‘lazy’. The Washington Times (2008) is another example of a media agency claiming that young people of today have become lazy. It suggests that perhaps young people become lazy as they become older: 90% of children aged 9 in the USA get at least a couple of hours of exercise each day, which is a huge contrast to teenagers aged 15 in the same nation where less than a third get the same amount of exercise each day.

The Daily Mail (2004) points the blame of falling exercise rates of adolescents towards the parents. It suggests that most parents do not care if their child gets the required amount of exercise. It goes on to say that four out of five parents claimed that they were unconcerned about their children being inactive. Woodhouse (2012) adds to this by saying that parents need to be stricter with their children when it comes to exercise, and not let excuses such as the weather result in letting children play video games rather than going outside to play.

However, Singhateh (2013) disagrees with the media labelling young people as being lazy and instead cites the reason for the falling rate of youth exercise is in fact the lack of opportunities available for young people to get involved with sport. Lowry et al. (2005) also agree with this suggesting that a lack of sporting opportunities within the schooling system is to blame for the low exercise rates within children and adolescents. Fox (2012) also extends on this claiming that even Prince Harry believed that there are not enough opportunities for young people to participate in sport. At the 2012 London Olympic Games, there was a clear lack of state school educated winners in Team GB. This goes to show that perhaps the government is not doing enough to fund and encourage the participation of sport at school. BBC News (2008) found out that in a poll of 3,700 teenagers, 72% would prefer to visit the gym, play football or attend a youth club than hang around at home. However, 4 out of 5 of which claimed that there were not enough for them to do and participate in their local community.

According to statistics, perhaps the media are right in saying that young people are lazy. However, I believe it is much deeper than this and maybe perhaps it is lazy parenting and lack of opportunities to become active that has led to this labelling of young people today. Perhaps more needs to be done to solve this problem of lazy children and adolescents today rather than the continuous barrage of complaints about them.

Joe Wilson

2nd year Human Geography student, University of Hull

References

BBC News (2008). Poll dispels 'lazy teenager' myth. [online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7698201.stm [Accessed: 11 Jul 2013].

Broers, S (2010). Why are teens so lazy today?. [online] Available at: http://www.examiner.com/article/why-are-teens-so-lazy-today [Accessed: 11 Jul 2013].

Brooks, F and Magnusson, J et al. (2011). HBSC England National Report. Findings from the 2010 HBSC study for England. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire.

CBC News (2011). Canadian youth woefully inactive. [online] Available at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/01/19/fitness-canadians-health.html [Accessed: 11 Jul 2013].

Daily Mail (2004). Parents 'do not care' about lazy children. [online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-326145/Parents-care-lazy-children.html[Accessed: 11 Jul 2013].

Fox, E (2012). Prince Harry hits out at 'lack of opportunities' in sport for young people | UK | News | Daily Express. [online] Available at: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/337043/Prince-Harry-hits-out-at-lack-of-opportunities-in-sport-for-young-people [Accessed: 11 Jul 2013].

Lowry, R  et al. (2005). Young People: Physical Health, Exercise and Recreation. [e-book].

Singhateh, M (2013). Young People Are Not Lazy. [online] Available at: http://www.foroyaa.gm/the-future-generation/13526-young-people-are-not-lazy [Accessed: 11 Jul 2013].

The Washingtion Times (2008). Youth grow lazy as they get older. [online] Available at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/16/youth-grow-lazy-as-they-get-older/?page=all [Accessed: 11 Jul 2013].

Woodhouse, C (2012). Fat’s your lot. [online] Available at: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4443257/Parents-are-offered-help-to-prevent-rain-sodden-summer-making-kids-fat-and-lazy.html [Accessed: 11 Jul 2013].

HBSC England Accepts Award!

Above: The HBSC England team (minus Antony). 

On Friday the 21st of June, the HBSC England team attended the University of Hertfordshire Vice Chancellor's award ceremony to pick up their 'Highly Commended' award in the category Excellence in Research.

The award for Excellence in Research is "awarded to a member of staff or team who have undertaken innovative or creative research which supports engagement with business, the professions and partner organisations through one of more of the following: undertaking and exploiting new research, creating new knowledge that is disseminated, transferred, applied and impactful, knowledge exchange and technology transfer, achieving international standing in key research areas, shaping policy agendas".

 

Above: The HBSC England team (minus Ellen & Antony) with the award! 

Adolescent health concerns: Not all sex, drugs and reckless risk taking.

Often when young people’s health feature in the media, the focus is on ‘problem-behaviour’ issues like alcohol consumption, smoking, teenage pregnancy, or poor diet and lack of physical exercise. Adolescents on the whole are perceived as being physically healthy and mostly at risk from behaviours that they themselves control, and which may be perceived as a normative part of being a young person. Teenagers are stereotypically portrayed as risk takers, and the potentially negative outcomes of their behaviour has led to a strong focus on reducing risk taking as a priority for young people’s health initiatives. In 2010 the UK government published the White Paper ‘Healthy lives, healthy people’¹, which recognises the distinct needs of different age groups and the necessity for approaches that are tailored to best meet individual circumstances. It reinforces the importance of people being ‘in charge’ of their own health, and of access to appropriate information and genuine dialogue with health care professionals. However, the concerns listed specifically in relation to adolescents are very much focused on the stereotypical issues listed above, with little or no mention of other types of health concerns.

There is no denying that involvement in risk behaviours can at times result in significant and detrimental consequences for young people, both in terms of health and more generally for academic achievement and maintenance of positive relationships. However, just focusing on the problem behaviours of adolescence may lead to other concerns being marginalised or ignored altogether. The latest National Report for HBSC England² shows that in 2009/ 10, 7% of boys and 10% of girls aged 11-15 years reported smoking at least sometimes; a sharp decrease since 2002 when 15% of boys and 21% of girls said they smoked at least sometimes. When it comes to drinking alcohol, at age 11, 4% of boys and 2% of girls say they drink alcohol every week; the figures for 15 year olds are 32% of boys and 23% of girls who report weekly alcohol consumption. Again, these figures have reduced dramatically since 2002 – for some age groups they have more than halved. We know from other statistics that teenage conceptions are at their lowest rate since 1969³. Meanwhile, the latest HBSC England report also show that many young people suffer from a range of physical health concerns. Headaches are the most prevalent, with 33% of all young people aged 11-15 years saying that they experience headaches every week. Among 15 year old girls, weekly headaches are reported by almost half (48%). Around a fifth (22%) of 11-15 year olds say they suffer from weekly stomach aches, and 14% from weekly back aches. More than half of young people aged 11-15 years (51% of boys and 62% of girls) suffer at least one physical symptom weekly (HBSC England unpublished data). Furthermore, unlike many of the risk behaviours, reported incidences of physical symptoms like headaches are increasing among young people.

Our findings that headaches are the most commonly reported physical symptom by young people is backed up by other research.⁴ Frequent somatic symptoms have been identified by children themselves to be related to the school environment (pressure of studying, noisy classrooms)⁵, and insecurity or conflict within the family.⁶ Other research has confirmed the association between somatic complaints and school-related stress⁷ and several studies have found the presence of functional symptoms to correlate negatively with young people’s quality of life.^8-10 Complaints like headaches and stomach-aches may have physical causes, which need to be investigated, or may be symptoms of other problems and stress. It is important not to dismiss young people presenting with such complaints as malingering, but to understand that regardless of the origins these symptoms can be indicative of serious problems and, consequently, lead to negative outcomes. Children and young people presenting in health care settings are also far more likely to discuss physical health symptoms than they are to discuss risk behaviours, meaning that such concerns may be more amenable to intervention.

Seeing adolescent health mainly from the perspective of problematic risk taking could result in overlooking the physical health complaints experienced by this age group; this tendency is already evident in both national and international policy. Meanwhile, we suggest that physical health complaints are far more frequently occurring among adolescents than are risk behaviours, that they are on the increase and can have a significantly negative impact on young people’s lives, and therefore deserve greater attention and respect than is currently the case.

Josefine Magnusson

References

1. Department of Health (2010) Healthy lives, healthy people. Department of Health
2. Brooks, F., Magnusson, J., Klemera, E., Spencer, N., and Morgan, A. (2011) HBSC England National Report:Findings from the 2010 HBSC study for England. University of Hertfordshire
3. Office for National Statistics (2013) Conceptions in England and Wales, 2011. Statistical Bulletin, Office for National Statistics
4. Shannon, R.A., Bergren, M.D., and Matthews, A. (2010) Frequent Visitors: Somatization in School-Age Children and Implications forSchool Nurses. The Journal of School Nursing, 26:169-182
5. Hjern, A., Alfven, G., and Östberg, V. (2008) School stressors, psychological complaints and psychosomatic pain. Acta Paediatrica, 97 (1): 112-117
6. Odegaard, G., Lindbladh, E., and Hovelius, B. (2003) Children who suffer from headaches – A narrativeof insecurity in school and family. British Journal of General Practice, 53 (488): 210-213
7. Henriksen, R.E., and Murberg, T.A. (2009) Shyness as a risk factor for somatic complaints amongNorwegian adolescents. School Psychology International, 30 (2): 148-162
8. Langeveld, J.H., Koot, H.M., and Passchier, J. (1997) Headache Intensity and Quality of Life inAdolescents. How are Changes in Headache Intensity in Adolescents Related toChanges in Experienced Quality of Life? Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 37 (1): 37-42
9. Youssef, N.N., Murphy, T.G., Langseder, A.L. and Rosh, J.R. (2006) Quality of life forchildren with functional abdominal pain: A comparison study of patients’ andparents’ perceptions. Pediatrics, 117 (1): 54-59
10. Hunfeld, A.M., Perquin, C.W., Duivenvoorden, H.J.,  Hazebroek-Kampschreur, A.J.M., Passchier, J., van Suijlekom-Smit, L.W.A., and van der Wouden, J.C. (2001) Chronic pain andits impact on quality of life in adolescents and their families. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 26 (3): 145-153 

Youth Participation

Youth participation means recognising that young people have important contributions to make in decisions that impact their lives. When done effectively, it ensures that young people have the skills, knowledge and confidence to get involved with decision making; and enabling a culture within which young people's opinions and contributions are recognised, valued and acted upon by the wider society.

An interesting conference on Youth Participation took place at the London School of Economics on the 18^th of April. The conference was organised by the National Council for VoluntaryYouth Services (NCVYS), who had done a great job presenting nearly all National Charity organisations who work with youth as partners. Established in 1936, the NCVYS is a diverse and growing network of over 280 national organisations and regional and local networks that work with and for young people. Their mission is to work with the members from voluntary and community organisations to build thriving communities and sustainable networks that help all young people achieve their potential.

The conference was focused on exploring meaningful and practical ways to engage young people in the decision-making processes of an organisation’s work. The seminars were held by the winners of young Partners Award 2012: The Rural Youth Voice Project, LeapConfronting Conflict training provider and the Fun Youth Involvement board. Experts (E.Mtungwazi, Head of recruitment at City Year) John Laughton, founder of Dare2Lead, and   Ross Hendry, director of policy from the office of the Children’s Commissioner) gave interesting talks about young people’s recruitment and retention, investing in leaders and in young people as partners. The most valuable part of the conference however was networking with the young participants themselves. It was so interesting to meet so many confident youngsters who knew what they wanted to do with their lives; they look so optimistically towards the future believing that they can change the world.

As we have already posted on our website and blog, we involve young people as co-researchers in HBSC study, which give the study another dimension: young people watching and observing other young people of nearly the same age!  We have held workshops with young people, established connections with local schools, through which we have formed Research Advisory Groups. These young researchers help our research by sharing their own experiences. For instance, taking on board young researchers’ feedback can ensure questions are easy to understand and reflect topics highly relevant to them. Young people can help us identify new research areas, evaluate the questions used in the HBSC questionnaire and helping to explain current HBSC findings. Organisations like the NCVYS help bring together people doing this kind of work in different arenas, ensuring we can learn from each other and spread the culture of youth participation even further.

                                                                                                     

                                                                                                        Ellen Klemera

Free seminar: Life-threatening illnesses in childbirth

The School of Health and Social Work and the Centre for Research in Primary and Community Care (CRIPACC) are delighted to present:

 ‘Life-threatening illnesses in childbirth: 

The long term burden for mothers and families’

Dr Lisa Hinton 

Senior Researcher, Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, 

University of Oxford

Dr Hinton is a senior qualitative researcher in the Health Experiences Research Group (HERG). Her research focuses on women's health, in particular experiences of infertility, pregnancy and childbirth, and the role of the Internet in mediating health experiences. Dr Hinton’s PhD explored the information and support needs of women and men going through infertility. She has published on the award-winning on-line website  Healthtalk. During her doctoral studies she also spent time on secondment as a Committee Specialist to the Health Select Committee at the House of Commons.

The seminar will be held on Wednesday 8th May 1.00pm to 2.00pm in Room F414 (Health Research Building), University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield AL10 9AB.  Please confirm whether you will be attending by e-mailing Julie Mace j.mace@herts.ac.uk

Summary: ReACH Seminar on Bullying

Our Twitter followers will be happy to know the seminar on bullying, which we have been tweeting about constantly, has finally taken place! This blog post will summarise the event for those of you who were unable to attend. The seminar was organised by the Research in Adolescent and Child Health (ReACH) interest group at the University of Hertfordshire, and proved to be an interesting and discursive event.  Professor Fiona Brooks from the University of Hertfordshire opened the seminar with the following thought-provoking questions which set the mood for the rest of the afternoon;

“Where does teasing end and bullying begin?”

“What form does bullying take?”

“What is the real prevalence of bullying?”

“What actions are effective to address bullying?”

Professor John Freeman from Queen’s University, Canada was the first of our speakers. John is a member of the Canadian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) team; and his presentation used HBSC data to compare bullying in England and Canada. In both the English and Canadian HBSC survey, young people are asked how often they had been bullied and bullied others in the last two months. John begun by comparing prevalence rates: more young people in Canada reported being bullied and bullying others than in England, but both countries saw a decrease in bullying behaviours with age. John then highlighted how different methods of measuring prevalence often result in varying levels being reported. HBSC Canada uses an additional measure of bullying to England; in which questions ask about specific behaviours i.e. “Have you been called mean names?” This measure of bullying, which does not include the word bullying, reports higher rates of prevalence than the single question. To conclude John discussed the negative health outcomes of bullying; in both England and Canada young people who experienced bullying had a significantly lower life satisfaction than those who had not been bullied.

Our second speaker was Dr Sarah Woods from the University of Sunderland. Sarah presented an evaluation of the Red Balloon Learner Centres, based on a PhD project by Dr Nicky Knights. The Red Balloon Learner Centres provide intensive full-time education for children and adolescents who have experienced severe bullying; the centres provide a personal academic, pastoral and therapeutic programme. The Red Balloon Learner Centres were evaluated based on improvements in psychosocial wellbeing and academic functioning, and compared to the interventions offered by local authority. Both the Red Balloon Learner Centres and the local authority interventions proved to have significant beneficial results on both wellbeing and academic functioning, with Sarah’s work establishing optimum results between 3 and 6 months. While Sarah found no differences between the positive effect of the Red Balloon Learner Centre’s and the interventions provided by local authority; she highlighted how the young people attending the Red Balloon Learner Centres had experienced more severe and enduring bullying. Consensus following Sarah’s presentation was that while interventions like Red Balloon Learner Centre’s are costly, the cost of doing nothing i.e. burden on NHS, and criminal justice system, is much greater in the long run.

Jessica von Kaenel-Flatt and Jennifer O’Brien from The BB Group were our final presenters of the afternoon. Jessica and Jennifer reported findings from the Virtual Violence II study by BeatBullying; a comprehensive survey of over 4000 young people in the UK designed to measure prevalence, methods, motivations and consequences of cyber bullying as well as teachers’ interpretations of the behaviour and interventions available. The survey reports that 28% of 11 – 16 year olds have been deliberately targeted, threatened or humiliated by an individual or group through the use of mobile phones of the internet; and 21% of young people aged 8 – 11 years reported experiencing cyber bullying. Certain groups of young people were identified as being more at risk of cyber bullying; girls are more likely to be victims of cyber bullying than boys and disabled young people were nearly twice as likely to be bullied as their non-disabled peers.  Jessica and Jennifer discussed preventative strategies for cyber bullying which lead to much discussion surrounding parents’ responsibilities. Should parents ensure they themselves are up-to-date with technology in order to protect their children and what about the use of parental restrictions?

The seminar closed with an insightful video of our young researchers discussing bullying; describing how the stigma attached to bullying is detrimental to the behaviour being reported. We would like to say a huge thank you to all of our presenters. The seminar proved to be a great success, and we hope that all attendees found it both interesting and useful. For more details, we provided an up-to-date account of the seminar on twitter - @HBSCEngland.

Kayleigh Chester