The Navigate Your Health Project
Navigate Your Health is a two-year pilot initiative by Children’s Health Queensland, Queensland’s Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Health Service. The initiative aims to improve health outcomes for children and young people in care and was designed with help from professionals within the care sector, advocates, and children and young people with care experience. There were three main elements to the initiative; health screening, referral coordination and health care coordination.
The initiative had 500 referrals in it’s first year, and has seen an improvement in the health outcomes of the children and young people involved, as well as an improvement in their access to services and a greater ability of workers in the Department to make informed decisions on the health and wellbeing of children and young people.
Learn more about the project by visiting the Queensland Government’s Navigate Your Health page.
CREATE Young Consultants get involved
CREATE was first involved with the project in its beginnings back in 2016/2017, where we helped connect our Young Consultants with the project. Our YCs helped informed the project, telling them what could be done to improve their health while in care. Young Consultant Jake even went on to become the young person representative on the project’s Executive Governance Group, where he’s spent two years ensuring the project included the voices of the people it was designed for.
[su_quote cite=”Rebecca O’callaghan from the Department of Safety, Youth and Women”]What an amazing young man [Jake is] – I am really grateful that you steered him our way, he was exactly the young person advocate and voice that we needed[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”Jake”]This was such a great project, it changed a lot of children’s lives and it will continue to change children’s lives for the better. I just wish we had more young people involved so we could have considered a great diversity of voices[/su_quote]
If you’re between 14 and 25 with a care experience and want to get involved with projects like Navigate Your Health, you can become a CREATE Young Consultant by participating in our Speak Up training. Speak Up is an empowerment program that builds young people’s confidence and teaches them to advocate for themselves on an individual, state and national level. Learn more on our Speak Up page.
