Examination of Witnesses (Questions 840-859)
THURSDAY 16 JANUARY 2003
MS LORNA
WEBLEY, MS
TARA HALL,
MS SARAH
NICHOLLS, MR
DAVID MORRIS,
MS EMMA
HENDERSON AND
MS ERICA
BUIST
840. The reason I asked that of course is that
Denise and Helen, I presume, are older than you. I know it is
difficult to say this in front of them, but what you are really
looking for is what young people think. They are older than you,
so do you think it was your ideas really driving it forward and
that there are older people who can sympathise and empathise with
what you are trying to do and that they would fall into that category?
(Ms Nicholls) Yes, Denise and Helen never put their
own opinions forward while we were doing this at all. It was all
our opinions and it was all young people's opinions. We went out
into the streets and interviewed young people and Helen and Denise
were really good with us. It was really good the way they worked
because they never tried to push us towards something, but it
was always, "Right, you tell us what you think", and
then we always knew if we had missed something out because they
would say, "Come and sit down", but they would never
push us towards somewhere we did not want to head as a team.
Chairman
841. Emma, can you just say a word or two about
the Parliament that you have formed?
(Ms Henderson) Yes, the Youth Parliament is obviously
a group of youths being a parliament which is supposed to echo
the main central government. In 2000 they collected a survey of
1,463 people all asking about sex education. There were five issues,
but sex education was one of them, so we got a response from young
people. There were 586 males and 877 females. That was all around
Bucks, so it was all of the three main areas and from that we
got loads of statistics about what they feel about sex education,
how they feel it is taught and how they feel about sexual health
problems. We basically did that because the south-east region
has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe and it is quite
a worrying statistic. It promotes a negative image, to be honest,
of the country as well and it has implications in terms of committing
resources and local communities. It has an individual impact on
young people's lives and their immediate families and friends,
so it impacts on everybody, so it was quite an important survey
and especially because it is not just a few people's views, but
it is the views of everybody, individual people from youth clubs,
from youth councils, from schools. There is a wide variety of
people in there.
842. You identified the sex education question
as a big issue. Would you concur broadly with what your Wakefield
colleagues have said about their findings from their peer research?
(Ms Henderson) It is basically what they have said.
The only difference is that we have statistics to prove what they
have said, and I can take you through them, if you want me to.
843. I would be interested, particularly if
you could briefly summarise the key points, so we are aware of
them. Sex education, I have noticed from your evidence, was very
important.
(Ms Henderson) Yes. The majority of people in Bucks
were aware that there is the highest teenage pregnancy rate in
Europe, so they are aware of it, but they do not know what to
do about it and they are not really that bothered about it. Nearly
50% consider that sex education lessons in school need to be improved
and lots of people think that they are inadequate or that they
should start earlier, and 798 people felt that they should start
earlier, so from Year 6 primary school onwards and then continuing
throughout the school as a compulsory lesson, something that is
incorporated into the PSHE programme. Forty-four per cent felt
a lack of confidence to ask question in sex education lessons,
so that means that 44%, which is nearly half, do not get to ask
relevant questions and they do not get the relevant information
that they want to know about because they feel uncomfortable asking
their teachers.
844. Do you pick up the point which was made
by either Lorna or Tara, I cannot remember which, that perhaps
somebody other than a teacher might be more appropriate?
(Ms Henderson) I think that is definitely one of the
points which has come forward. I think at the minute sex education
is just like a token thing in schools in that it is taught, it
is there, but it is not really taught, not the way it should be.
We have English teachers to teach English, but we do not have
sex education teachers to teach sex education, yet surely that
has a bigger impact on our lives, so it is really not doing the
job properly to have an English or geography teacher teaching
sex education.
John Austin
845. I think Sarah has probably answered this
because the research that you have done was clearly led by you
with adult professional advice and support, but led by you. You
have made a number of recommendations for change. How important
do you think it is that those initiatives to improve sexual health
should be peer-led or involve young people themselves?
(Ms Nicholls) We at the Peer Group think it is quite
a big issue. I could go through the report, but basically when
we have been talking and asking people who they spoke to about
sex, who they spoke to about sex education, it has always been,
"I have found it off my friends", "I talk to my
friends about it". "If you have a problem, who do you
go and see?" "I go and see my friends", and everyone
goes to see their friends. Young people feel comfortable talking
to people of the same age, we have found throughout our report,
than they do when talking to someone older, so peer education
and peer research, we felt, was a really big point in sex education.
There is a quote in the report where one person actually said,
"There should be more people like you coming into schools
to teach us things that you already know". Because we have
been educators of it, I find myself being able to help my friends
and I think if I can help my friends when they are in a situation,
why can I not help everybody. I do know that my friends do feel
comfortable talking to me about it and, from our report, it is
shown that young people feel more comfortable talking to young
people, so we developed on that somewhere down the line.
846. Is that Emma's view as well?
(Ms Henderson) Yes, definitely. One of the things
that has come through is that most people get their information
from friends in school or magazines, so they do not feel comfortable
talking to teachers or adults about it. Most of the time the atmosphere
is not right to talk about it, it is not relaxed enough, and they
do not feel confident to ask.
(Ms Hall) We have found that only 19 out of 202 would
actually speak to a teacher about a sexual health issue as they
would much rather speak to their friends, but they do think that
sex education should be provided by the school.
847. But possibly not by teachers?
(Ms Hall) Yes.
(Ms Nicholls) Picking up on a point that Emma made,
if you can have a teacher to teach geography that you might never
use again, why can you not have a teacher to teach sex education
that you need throughout your life?
Julia Drown
848. Is actually what you are suggesting that
we should recommend maybe not having specific teachers, but actually
having a programme whereby we ensure that there are people like
you who can actually go into schools and each year group and then
you actually have young people directly doing the teaching, not
even a health visitor or somebody else? Would that work?
(Ms Nicholls) Yes.
849. I want to pick up on some of the statistics
from Emma's survey and I have two questions. The first is where
you said you would ask young people if they knew where to obtain,
and what to do with, contraception and 21% of people knew about
condoms and 50% the pill. Did your survey go into details of those
who were sexually active? Did you get an impression that those
who were sexually active knew where to get contraception or did
it not distinguish between those who were sexually active and
those who were not?
(Ms Henderson) I do not think the actual survey distinguished.
It does not really matter if you are sexually active or not because
at one point you will be, so you should know beforehand or while
you are doing it, it does not matter, but it should be a well-known
fact.
850. We have just got this summary here, but
one of the points was about the morning-after pill and it just
says that 53.5% do not agree that the morning-after pill should
be available on prescription. Can you just clarify what that means?
Does that mean that it should be more freely available than that
or what?
(Ms Henderson) I think what that statistic means is
that although a certain amount of people do not agree with the
morning-after pill, 53.5% or actually 41.5% do agree that it should
be available. I think mostly the 53% could be for religious reasons
or moral reasons.
851. So they were saying that it should not
be available at all, not that it should not be available over
the counter?
(Ms Henderson) Yes.
852. Because it can be interpreted both ways.
(Ms Henderson) I think it could be, but I think also
the fact is that some people felt that if you needed the morning-after
pill, you should have to go to your doctor to discuss the issue.
It is a big thing to do.
Chairman
853. I found that a very interesting answer
and I was quite surprised by the number who appeared to feel quite
strongly about that. Sarah and your Wakefield colleagues, was
that something that you looked at at all? Were there any opinions
from the people you talked to about the morning-after pill?
(Ms Webley) No.
854. Would you guess that the feelings of the
people in your area were similar to Emma's? From talking to your
peers and talking to the people that you go around with, would
you feel that was so? I would have expected a far lesser figure
to have said what young people in Buckinghamshire have said.
(Ms Webley) I think people would rather be able to
go to the chemist and say, "Look, I need it", without
having to explain why because they might just have had an accident,
they might have been stupid, so they are not necessarily wanting
to explain it all to the doctor and feel even worse about it.
Then the cost of it is another thing.
855. That is a good Yorkshire opinion there!
You may not go along with the findings of Emma's group possibly
on that then?
(Ms Webley) No.
Julia Drown
856. You said that you do not think that the
current education system is dealing very well with sex education,
but can you outline for us what you think are the main worries,
fears, questions and concerns for young people in the area of
sex education and sexual health?
(Ms Nicholls) Sex education within school?
857. I should say sex and relationships really.
What are the main concerns that you think young people have?
(Ms Nicholls) Well, we were asking about the services
and what they actually thought about the services. The two biggest
concerns about talking to someone about the services and talking
to somebody else about relationships and things like that was
what other people would think, and the second biggest issue was
confidentiality. We found a lot of young people who were frightened
to go to their clinic or talk to someone about it because they
were frightened that they might go and tell somebody else. The
confidentiality was not pushed for them. The attitude of others,
obviously we personally cannot recommend anything to change that,
that is a taboo, and everyone is always going to be worried about
what other people think, that is society today. On the confidentiality,
it is little things like we recommend in the Peer Group that it
is put into practice that when a young person accesses a service,
the confidentiality statement is gone through with them and it
does not even have to be a big, formal one. We had a confidentiality
statement which was about six lines long and took 30 seconds and
in most clinics in Wakefield they had a TV-video combi. We made
an advertisement about relationships and what-have-you and sex,
and if you get young people together to do something on TV about
confidentiality and the confidentiality statement within the clinic,
you can put it on the video player and it can play through, so
while they are sat in the waiting room, there is constant reassurance.
That was one of the highest things which was of concern to young
people.
858. And, Emma, in the work that you have done?
(Ms Henderson) I think most people are concerned about
confidentiality. I think that is a main issue. Also I think they
are concerned about what people think of them and they are concerned
about how they will be viewed if they ask certain questions. I
think they are embarrassed to ask certain questions as well. If
they want to ask questions and obviously if they do not feel confident
in themselves in the way that they are going about things, they
are embarrassed by themselves, not by the other person, and that
is a hard thing to get over, so they need to be reassured. What
came out is that people in Bucks do not really know where the
agencies are and 92.6% do not know any support agencies for sexual
health, so if they do not know about them., they do not get the
support from them or the reassurance.
859. In some parts of this country there are
specific youth clinics and also in some other parts of the world
they actually have clinics associated with schools. Do you think
that would get over some of the confidentiality problems or would
young people be equally embarrassed to go into the clinic, thinking,
"I might see one of my friends", compared to thinking,
"It could be somebody much older than me, like my mum or
my mum's friend could be there"? Would it help if it was
around the school and if it was specifically a youth clinic?
(Ms Nicholls) In Wakefield we have our own clinic,
a family planning clinic and the Options clinic which I was speaking
about earlier. From the response that we got, people do feel more
comfortable being in that environment where there are other young
people, but our problem in Wakefield is that people do not know
where the services are and they do not know the contact numbers.
That picks up one of our recommendations where we are saying with
the school planners, everyone gets the same school planner, so
why can we not put the contact numbers in the school planner.
It is a page in a book. With the Options clinic, when they changed
the waiting room around, because you have the family planning
clinic and then it changes on one night to the Options clinic,
they changed the waiting room around a little bit for the Options
clinic and I know personally from talking to friends that people
do notice a difference in it and they do feel a lot more comfortable.
It is one of those same old taboos which really needs breaking.
"I saw her in the Options clinic", but at the end of
the day that person who saw you there is there for the same reason
as you. This is what we are trying to get through and I personally
would like to try and work on this to get it through to people
that it is not a bad thing that they are there, it is a good thing
that they are there because they are doing the right thing, so
the Options clinic works well.
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