Young people's perceptions of alcohol

Last week I made reference to the Labour Party Conference being proof that young people learn about alcohol from the way adults around them drink - because they are sad, happy, upset, furious, or of course, for no other reason than they want a drink. My experience and behaviour at the Conservative Party Conference was similar - very late nights and too much to drink at least once, possibly twice.

Last week the British Youth Council launched a report about young people's experiences of alcohol, Sex and drinking - young people's experiences. As part of the report a survey of 1,000 young people found that there were strong links between drinking alcohol and having unsafe sex, almost one in three young people said the first time they had sex they had been drinking, and of these one in five would not have had sex if they were sober.

This supports what we already know that if young people have been drinking they are more likely to regret having sex and less likely to use contraception.

Most of the young people surveyed agreed that advice and information about avoiding drinking which might lead to having unsafe or regretted sex should be available in sexual health clinics. And of course, that is already happening in some places in both education and clinical services.

Brook has produced a new 'alcohol version' of our Have fun, be careful poster to remind young people if they are going to have sex to always use a condom to protect against unplanned pregnancy and STIs (see www.brook.org.uk for further information).

Posters, leaflets and discussions in education about the links between sexual risk taking and other drugs is crucial, but it is not the task. The task is to shift our culture around alcohol so young people are learning about safe and responsible drinking from the adults around them.

Sexual health at the party conferences

If you ever need proof that young people take their lessons about alcohol from the adults around them you might just want to visit a political party conference next autumn. There is absolutely no doubt that alcohol is a social lubricant at these affairs.

Tonight I am packing my bag to head off to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester on the early train tomorrow, reflecting on the questions I want to ask, the people I want to speak to and the answers I want to get. This time last week I was doing the same in preparation for the Labour Party Conference in Brighton.

In Brighton I was pleased at the commitment from Ministers to securing PSHE as a statutory subject. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a desire to get this through the legislative process. I just hope this becomes a reality and will be looking for reassurance from the Conservative Party that they want to see PSHE being statutory and will support it in parliament. Children's personal development and their health and well being is not party political, and particularly in the run up to the general election we have to ensure that it does not become so. The absolute majority of people, parents, professionals and children want schools to deliver high quality Personal, Social and Health Education. Brook among others has been campaigning for a long time to make that happen.

I was particularly pleased to attend a few fringe meetings where young people were involved in a meaningful way, creating and offering solutions to move away from the demonising approach to young people. A young women speaking at The Children's Society fringe meeting about inter generational relations told sad tales of a society that has lost sight of the power and creativity of young people. I was particularly horrified that she had been told by a shop keeper she could not come in because she looked like a thief, and had to endure the sound of a mosquito alarm going off whilst eating Mcdonalds with friends. She was followed by Professor Tanya Byron who gave a compelling presentation and ended by saying she was ashamed of our fearful punitive approach to young people.

We still have a long way to go in ensuring that children and young people are effectively integrated into our policy thinking and discussions. I worry still that either we do not think hard enough in the planning of meetings and the support young people are offered so they cannot be fully involved, or we try so hard to include them that all conversations defer back to young people and they never ever get challenged. Neither approach is good enough and we all still have a long way to go to get youth involvement right.

The National Autistic Society held an excellent fringe on the education of children with autism, and I look forward to following up an early conversation with their CEO about how we can make sure that high quality education for children with autism extends to education about their bodies, relationships and sexual health as well.

I will be leaving Manchester to head back to London on Wednesday where in the evening I am speaking at a meeting about sex and relationships education set up by Dialogue with Islam in the East London Mosque at 6.45. You can find out more from their website www.dialoguewithislam.org

New appointments at Brook

I'm delighted to announce three new appointments at Brook and welcome Eve Martin as Chair, Kathy French as Clinical Director and Lady (Winifred) Tumin CBE who has recently become an ambassador for Brook.

Their knowledge and experience will be a great assest for Brook and I look forward to working with them to take our work forwards and reach many more young people.

Please click here to see the full news release on our website.

Positive voices of young disabled people and sexuality

A brilliant celebration of young disabled people as sexual beings giving a positive voice to a group of young people whose sexual feelings, desires and experiences still remain too often unspoken about or the target of prejudice and misunderstanding.

www.sexsmartfilms.com/free-videos/sex-abled-disability-uncensored

As well as being able to download for free, it can be purchased on DVD for training purposes

The age of consent

Tomorrow Radio 4 will host a debate about the age of sexual consent, which is currently 16. Law professsor John Spencer is reported in the Daily Mail as being set to argue that the current age of consent criminalises 'half the population'.

The guidance to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 is very clear. The Act is not there to criminalise consensual sexual activity amongst young people, although I accept from many people who know far more about legislation than I do, that this Act is not the best conceptualised and leaves too much room for inequitable legislation. This is borne out in some of the calls and letters that I receive from anxious parents whose child has been the subject of unhelpful criminal investigation into consensual sexual activity.

I look forward to the debate tomorrow, but meanwhile I am with young people and Nick, my trainer at the gym who has in recent months become an active debater on teenage pregnancy, sexual assault, sex and the media, who when I asked him this morning what he thought about lowering the age of consent, thought it was probably best 'left as it is'. Even though he can see there is the potential pressure that people feel when they get to 16 to have sex if they have not done so already.

And herein lies at least some of the problem for me, the feeling amongst the young that everyone else is doing it more often, younger and in more daring ways. But to be honest this is not simply the domain of young people. As adults we too, are often consumed with the view that others are 'having it more and better'. And this is about our culture, not the law (although I know of course the law and culture are closely interlinked).

Research shows the practical reality of the age of consent for young people. In all you need is love? sexual morality through the eyes of young people published by National Children's Bureau, Sharpe and Thomson show that whilst the age of consent is not central in young people's decision making about whether and when to have sex - trust and love playing a much greater role - the age of consent does send a message to young people about when as a society we think is a reasonable age to have sex. I have also talked with many many young women and the professionals that work with them about the age of consent over the last decade. The resounding consensus from them is leave it as it is - it is a good negotiating tool that we can use to refuse to have sex should we want to use it.

So on that basis for now, as long as we have adequate safeguards which prevent young people under 16 who are engaged in consensual sexual activity from being criminalised, and those young people who have sex under 16 have access to contraceptive and sexual health services and feel confident using them, my view is lets keep it at 16. I look forward to the Radio 4 programme Iconoclasts tomorrow and listening to see whether there is anything that may make me consider changing my view.

In the meantime foot on the accelerator to create that positive open culture about sex and sexuality.

New website to help influence local sexual health services

More and more decisions about health services are being made at local level. In response to this Brook has worked with a number of national sexual health organisations to create a new website which will help people lobby, influence and ask questions about local sexual health and contraceptive services. Find out more at www.shoutloud.org.uk

So I urge you to start influencing and sign up to the website now - get your voice heard!

Punk rock

I saw this play last night - remarkably talented young actors in a play which brings into sharp focus the complexities of growing up - anxiety, distress, sex and sexual tension, identity, self harm and bullying as well as resilience and maturity.

In one scene a character tries to console another who is despairing of his peers within the school. She says something along the lines of '99% of young people in this school are nice, and what nobody ever says is 99% of young people are good, don't forget that'.

And as to prove it, today I fell off my bike and needed some help. It was a bit embarrassing sprawled on the road with a Brompton fold up bike wrapped around me. At least twenty people were nearby, mostly adults and it was the two young lads who came to check I was alright and help me up whilst the adults scuttled on by. How I wish some of those adults who damn young people could have seen. More proof that ephibiphobia - the fear of young people - is ill founded.