Sefton Public Health Report 2024
Foreword from Margaret Jones
Welcome to this year’s Public Health Annual Report
Welcome once again to my annual report for Sefton. The report for 2024 is an opportunity for us to look at what keeps our young people well. This is an opportunity to take a strength based approach to explore how we can keep ourselves well and prevent low levels of wellbeing.
We have decided to focus the scope of this report on those aged 18-25 due to the pressures these young people will have felt throughout the pandemic, regional and national issues that have affected our borough in the past months and years. Most young people in Sefton are already well and we want to keep them that way. How well someone feels when they are growing up can affect how well they feel for the rest of their lives. This report aims to summarise what we know helps keep us well and then go into a deep dive into how our local young people feel. In a change to how my reports are normally presented, I wanted this report to be more creative and based in the art of photography. It is well known that through taking part in a creative process can also make us feel good.
Chapter 3 shows some case studies exploring what some local young people have told us they enjoy doing to protect their mental wellbeing, all through interviews and working with a local photographer to create some powerful imagery. I look forward to everyone getting a chance to look at the amazing photographs they have helped produce and read these positive stories of growing up and thriving in our borough.
To help us share the information in this document with as many people as possible there is also a shorter, simplified version available to download and print off on our website. You can also view or listen to individual chapters online in multiple languages.
If you need the report in an alternative format such as large print, please contact us on 0345 140 0845 or email public.health@sefton.gov.uk.
I would like to thank everyone for their enthusiastic involvement in the preparation of this report.
Introduction from Councillor Doyle
Councillor Mhairi Doyle – Cabinet Member for Public Health and Wellbeing
Welcome to Sefton Council’s 2024 Public Health Annual Report. This report provides an opportunity to review and reflect on, and in many cases celebrate the lived experience of our young people in Sefton. Our young people have been through a lot and continue to thrive despite numerous challenges they may face. I hope through this report we can better understand what it is that keeps our young people well in Sefton and work together to promote the opportunities to experience these things locally in our borough. As the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing I commend this report and hope you enjoy reading it. Please get in touch if you have any feedback or suggestions on how we can work together to help keep our young people well.
Thanks
Sefton Council: Tim Martin, Rory McGill, Helen O’Reilly, Martin Driver, Ella Fleetwood
Others: Tadhg Devlin (photographer and researcher), Debbie Rogers (Seans Place), Heather Redhead (Kooth) and the young people who gave up their time to work with us on this.
