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SECTION TWO: PROMOTING RESPECT AND RESPONSIBILITY
KEY POINTS
- Everyone deserves equal access to sexual health services and information regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, age or religion
- Economic, cultural and social influences all have an influence on sexual wellbeing
- Work is going on at a national and local level to promote positive relationships and good sexual health
- Schools are a key area for promoting good sexual health
- Parents, carers and young people are being engaged in initiatives to promote respect and responsibility.
Almost above all, the sexual health strategy wants to promote respect for self and others as the basis of positive relationships and good sexual health and wellbeing.
The strategy recognises that not everyone is the same: there are many different faiths and cultures in Scotland and services have to be geared up to respect that.
Everyone deserves equal access to sexual health services and information, regardless of race, ethnicity, disability, gender, sexual orientation, age or religion. The strategy sets out a number of goals, actions and initiatives to promote respect and responsibility. Progress is being made on these and some are detailed below.
Action has been taken at a national and local level by, among others, NHS Boards, schools and the Scottish Executive.
For example, as required by the strategy:
- A Ministerially-led National Sexual Health and Advisory Committee has been formed, to support implementation of the strategy and make it easier to ensure that sexual health is considered in wider Scottish Executive policies and initiatives.
- All NHS Boards either have carried out or are in the process of drawing up an equality and diversity impact assessment to make sure that no groups are excluded from services.
- The Scottish Executive is supporting the full implementation of the McCabe Report, the Report of the Working Group on Sex Education in Scottish Schools.
WORKING WITH FAITH GROUPS
NHS Boards and other stakeholders are working to ensure that local sexual health strategies are developed to be sensitive to Scotland's diverse faiths and cultures. Specific action has included working with the Scottish Catholic Education Service to produce a package of teaching materials to support the teaching of Relationships and Moral Education in Catholic schools.
CASE STUDY
NEW APPROACH TO RELATIONSHIPS AND MORAL EDUCATION IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
Healthy Respect the national health demonstration project for sexual health and wellbeing of young people and the Scottish Catholic Education Service ( SCES) are developing Called to Love, funded by the Scottish Executive.
This pilot project aims to offer those attending Catholic secondary schools the opportunity to be fully informed on sexual health matters by placing relationships education within a faith context.
By September 2006, materials were being written and tested with teachers in Catholic schools in Lothian and Inverclyde. The project aims to produce an appropriate package of Sex and Relationships and Moral Education materials for wider use in Catholic Schools across Scotland, based on the lessons learned from the pilot.
The project involves developing curricular guidance and appropriate resources on sex and relationships and moral education and developing and delivering appropriate training and support for teachers and other professionals.
It also aims to evaluate and review materials to allow the most appropriate resources to be produced and to work in partnership with relevant interest groups.
WIDER INFLUENCES ON SEXUAL HEALTH
The strategy recognises that sexual health and wellbeing do not happen in isolation. Economic, cultural and social influences all have an impact on sexual wellbeing and can be implicated in inequalities. For example, evidence suggests strongly that people from more deprived backgrounds are more likely to have sex at a younger age. (source: McLeod, A. Changing patterns of teenage pregnancy: population based study of small areas.
British Medical Journal 2001; 323; 199-203.)
The Scottish Executive's wider policies aim to cut inequalities in health, including sexual health and work has continued on this since the strategy began.
For example, research shows that a significant minority of young people report having unprotected sex as a result of drinking alcohol. (source: 2002 Scottish Schools' Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey ( SALSUS) National Report - ISBN 0114973148.)
Promoting sensible drinking is a key plank of policy at a local and national level. For example, the Scottish Executive recently launched a campaign to discourage the 'rounds' culture in Scotland's pubs to try to combat peer pressure to have 'just one more drink'.
CHANGING CULTURES: EDUCATION, MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
Work is ongoing across Scotland to educate young people about sex and relationships, including the message that abstinence is a legitimate choice.
CASE STUDY
BE BOOKS PROMOTE RESPECT AND RESPONSIBILITY
Young people aged 13 to 15 are being targeted by the Be Books initiative, with 'Be' standing for 'Be Safe, Be Sure, Be All You Can Be'.
The books have been produced by NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Ayrshire and Arran as part of a three-year sexual health social marketing campaign.
The campaign aims to encourage people to put off having sex until they are ready by highlighting some of the behaviours which influence early sexual activity or experimentation, such as peer pressure, gender roles, lack of assertiveness and low self-esteem.
The books are written in language young people use and understand, reflect their real life situations, are humorous and come over as underground and cool. They have been extensively tested with the target age group across the three NHS Board areas and are very positively received.
The books are free to groups working with young people in health, education and community settings and are intended to be used as a tool to initiate discussion.
The first in the series, called Boys and Girls, was distributed from mid-September and will be evaluated further throughout the winter.
A website will also be available to provide young people with more detailed information and support and guidance notes have also been written to support people introducing the books into one-to-one and group work settings with young people.
CASE STUDY
NEW BOOKLETS FOR PARENTS OF UNDER-14S
NHS Health Scotland has developed new booklets for parents and carers to support communication around relationships and sexual health.
The booklets, a new one for parents of children aged 4 to 9 and an updated one for parents of 10 to 13 year olds, support the overall thrust of national policy and link in with sex and relationships education taking place in schools.
Both build on learning from the national health demonstration project, Healthy Respect, and on the work of health promotion and education specialists across Scotland.
Parents were specifically asked their views on the content and design of the booklets as they were developed.
The booklets are being distributed through health promotion, schools, parents' organisations and other agencies who work with parents and carers.
CASE STUDY
HOME ACTIVITY RESOURCE PACK
Healthy Respect, the national health demonstration project, is supporting schools in encouraging parents and children to talk to each other about relationships.
Home activity packs have been developed, in association with teachers and health promotion experts, to help improve communication between parents and children and young people.
There are two packs, one aimed at primary schools, which links in with national guidelines which schools are already using and cover topics such as physical, social and emotional health. Training for teachers on using the packs began in late summer 2006 and the aim is to pilot them in 18 schools in Midlothian.
The secondary school packs tie in with sex and relationship education programmes already being used in schools, including the SHARE (Sexual Health and Relationships Education) programme produced by NHS Health Scotland.
Issues include handling unplanned pregnancy, condom use, peer pressure and parents' views on sex and relationships.
Both packs will be externally evaluated.
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