Beautiful Within...

Finding happiness and confidence within your own skin, (www.simonsays.co.uk) is the name of Brook’s ambassador, Mica Paris’ new book. In the introduction she states ‘every woman has it in her to create the life she really wants. We can do whatever we like, be anything we choose. All that stops us is that we don’t think we can.’ How sadly true for so many people young and old today.

When I was growing up I used to visit an ‘old lady’ Mrs O’Brien, mostly on Sundays. She probably has no idea how much she influenced me by regaling with her stories of love, loss, happiness, the importance of grabbing your chances and most importantly to remember there were always choices. Thank you Edith! I often talked of the problems and difficulties of ‘a friend’ and went away confident in my decision (sometimes to find she was wrong and I was in trouble!). But too many people don’t have an Edith.

And at Brook we see many of those young people without the confidence and self esteem, or the emotional and social skills to take control of their lives. Their dreams shattered by their experience of love and care, pressure and influence, they lose confidence and hope, and settle for second best in all areas of their lives, including sex and relationships.

Brook’s mission is ‘to enable all people to make informed choices about their personal and sexual relationships so that they can enjoy their sexuality without harm’. It is our joint belief and commitment that (young people) have the power to create the life they want that has led us to work together.

Mica’s story provides many practical ideas and personal insights that will be helpful for women, young women and for those that work with them. At Brook we look forward to working with Mica to change the world by helping young people change it for themselves. If I take anything from the book it is a reminder that there is nothing ‘nice’ about hiding talent, nothing brilliant about ‘settling for our lot’ and that sometimes choices are difficult and life it tough, but with a dollop of courage and lots of support there is always hope for fulfilment and happiness.

We get what we expect

In 2001 I went on a sex education study tour to the United States of America. I met with a range of people working in the USA including Kristin Luker, a researcher from California who has done significant research on teenage pregnancy. Amongst many interesting and helpful points she said 'you get what you expect from young people'.

Expect them to be rude, feckless, 'hoodies', drunken and that is what you get. Expect them to be thoughtful, hopeful, engaged and brilliant and they will be. I was reminded of her point earlier this week when talking to a young person excluded from school and finding life at a Pupil Referral Unit a bit tough. I asked him what he thought his chances of getting back to school this year were . His reply went something like, 'i have been written off. School doesn't want me, here they don't expect me to turn up very often, and my mum has given up.'

He went on to say that even if he tried to sort things out now he won't get the chance - he is labelled. I wonder how the conversation would have gone if through effective relationship somebody had touched the imagination of this nice young man - helped him to believe in himself and found something he was brilliant at and interested in.

Only if we expect the best for young people, and let them(and all the people who are cynical and suspicious of them) know we want and expect the best for them and from them, only then we will our young dream of a world they want. And when people dream we know brilliant things happen.

Human Papilloma Virus - the case for a vaccination programme

Yesterday the Health Protection Agency announced new findings that at least 10% of young women have the human papillomavirus by the age of 16. HPV leads to increased risk of cervical cancer in women. We now have a vaccination for HPV which saves lives.

We urge government must urgently implement a vaccination programme for girls and boys before they become sexually active and ensure suffficient resource is available to do so. A key human resource is of course the school nurse, part of our workforce so badly affected by the NHS deficit and a service seriously underfunded.

Most times I speak to school nurses, they are compassionate, passionate about public health and desperate to do more, to have more opportunities to build genuine relationships with children and young people, rather than a snatched moment here and there as they rush from duty to duty, school to school. Dialogue about implementing a HPV vaccination programme will necessarily involve dialogue about how to ensure there are enough school nurses, with enough resource to do the job. And I sincerely hope the opportunity will be taken to ensure serious conversation about the wider role of the school nurse in promoting children and young people's public health as well.

Finally, a vaccination programme is not a universal panacea, it is only part of the solution. It must be backed up with proper education about sex and relationships, opportunties for children and young people to develop skills, hopes and aspirations and a change in culture so young people expect much from the relationships and sex they choose to have.

Good news story about the contraceptive pill

This positive story about the overall protection the contraceptive pill provides against cancers in women is worth reading

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6987889.stm

Whenever stories about sexual health and relationships are in the media, Brook gets asked whether we work with young people who are willing to talk to them about the issues concerned. We know that are many young people who have very strong views about sex and relationships education, sexual health services and access to contraception. If you are one of those young people and you would like to talk about getting involved with Brook's work and being an ambassador for young people and sexual health please contact Juliet Hillier at julieth@brookcentres.org.uk or phone 020 7284 6052

I went to the dentist today...

...and for most people the link between this and a blog which addresses sexual health and relationships may be tenuos - less so for me perhaps because my partner is a dentist but that is not the purpose of this post.

However, when I was a child i had some pretty grim experiences with my dentist. I always hated it and when I asked him to stop or give me a minute with a squeak or a frantic wiggle of the hand he just carried on regardless. Until this year i have had to be sedated for any treatments. After much coaxing from my partner, some self determination and patience from my suitably selected dentist today i had only my second session of treatment without sedation in 15 years.

So here is the link to relationships and sexual health - firstly our experiences when we are young will often lay the pattern for relationships and create expectations for the future. It is therefore crucial that we respect young people's developing sexuality, help them expect and want to give and get a lot from their relationships, only have sex that they choose to have and ensure their early experiences of sexual health services are good.

Second, as i have learnt from my recent dental episode, it can take a lot of reassurance, a lot of encouragement and a lot of determination to do things differently or to expect something better - for those young people who have had poor early experiences which may include abuse and harm we can help them create a new map for themselves by providing that reassurance and encouragement to foster their determination. Unless we do young people expecting too little, become adults who expect too little and they in turn become the parents of our next generation, who in turn will also expect too little from their relationships.

Lessons at the Fringe

I have just spent some time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We saw some fantastic stand up comedy, brilliant physical dance theatre and theatre (and of course we saw some not so fantastic). Two shows were moving - the first Stonewall, billed as one persons memory of the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969. Many of us know about the Stonewall riots and their central role in starting the gay liberation movement. Judging from the audience gasp, less of us realised that gay sexuality was finally legalised across the whole of the United States of America in 2003. And of course, it was only in 2000 that the age of consent was equalised here and let us not forget that young people who are perceived to be gay or lesbian are often teased and bullied in schools across the UK on a daily basis.

The second - a physical dance show, 'As a mother of a brown boy' was about the untimely death of a mixed race boy, killed whilst being chased by the police from a burglary scene in 2005. This superb theatre focused on the importance of identity and of feeling comfortable in our skin - an important development task for all of us, something we must help children and young people to do whatever their ethnicity, faith or beliefs, and at the heart of all good sexual health work.

If you are in Edinburgh this August, I recommend both of them.

sometimes semantics are important

I have just been asked about Brook's view on abstinence education as a form of sex and relationships education. Abstinence education is not a form of sex and relationships education. Sex and relationships education involves the acquisition of accurate information, the development of emotional and social skills, and an exploration of values. A good curriculum brings together different legal, health cultural and religious perspectives to help children develop their own beliefs and values and to respect the right of others to have different beliefs.

Abstinence education, on the otherhand, is based on a particular set of moral beliefs that emphasises the importance of 'saving' sex until marriage and often offers inaccurate information about condoms and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections.

Sex and relationships education is about empowerment, about learning to make choices and about respect for diversity and from what I know about abstinence education, there is no evidence that it fits the bill on that front either.

Good quality sex and relationships education at home, at school and in the community, coupled with high quality young people friendly sexual health services has been shown to help young people delay sex and to use contraception and condoms when they do have sex. Abstinence education does not do that.

Sometimes semantics are simply semantic. Sometimes they are important. This is one of those times when it is right to be fussy.