Children's Needs Assessments

The latest in-depth analysis of the needs of Herefordshire's children and young people was completed in 2022.   Its main purpose was to inform a redesign of the Healthy Child Programme, but it was designed to provide a broad profile of their general health and well-being needs.

 A summary of findings to inform the redesign can be downloaded from the box on the right hand side.  Some of the key messages about the issues facing our children and young people include:

•  Home and family environment:
• impact of the cost of living crisis on our most disadvantaged, including the risk of fuel poverty and cold homes in such a rural county
• Safeguarding risks linked to the 'toxic trio' of parental substance misuse, mental ill-health and domestic violence
• Although overall early years development is good and children do relatively well at school, there are some areas of concern:
• impact of covid-19 pandemic on all children, and particularly those who are disadvantaged; from a drop in being ready for school to leaving school in a social mobility 'cold spot'
• Outcomes for the increasing number of children with the highest level of additional need

•  For young adults, the analysis highlighted risks around the impact of alcohol, sexual health, road safety, and hospital admissions due to injury
• Physical health issues of concern were:
• Some aspects of maternal health, particularly smoking and weight.  Rates of infant mortality, which had been increasing and was amongst the highest in England in 2018/20
• The long-standing issues of poor oral health and excess weight in young children
• Concerns about the mental well-being of children and young people themselves, and also their parents - and the importance of building resilience.

The 2022 analysis builds on and updates elements of the 2019 Children's Integrated Needs Assessment, but we have left the reports of this work available to download on this page as they provide more detail for some areas.

The data in in-depth reports will inevitably become out of date at different rates.  We have focused the key messages on big issues and longer-term trends, but for the latest data we recommend a few useful comparison tools which can be found in the 'useful links' box on the 'Growing Up' page.