scholarly journals Doing relationships and sexuality education with young people in state care

2016 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abbey Hyde ◽  
Deirdre Fullerton ◽  
Caroline McKeown ◽  
Maria Lohan ◽  
Laura Dunne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Skills ◽  
Young People ◽  
Sexual Health ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health Needs ◽  
Analytical Strategy

Background: Existing literature indicates that young people in state care have particular sexual health needs that include addressing their social and emotional well-being, yet little has been published as to how these components of sex education are actually delivered by service-providers. Objective: The aim of this study was to analyse the processes involved in delivering relationship and sexuality education to young people in state care from the perspectives of a sample of service-providers with a role in sexual health-care delivery. Design: Qualitative methodological strategy. Setting: Service-delivery sites at urban and rural locations in Ireland. Method: A total of 22 service-providers were interviewed in depth, and data were analysed using a qualitative analytical strategy resembling modified analytical induction. Findings: Participants proffered their perceptions and examples of their practices of sex education in relation to the following themes: (1) acknowledging the multi-dimensional nature of sexual health in the case of young people in care; (2) personal and emotional development education to address poor self-esteem, emotional disconnectedness and an inability to recognise and express emotions; (3) social skills’ education as part of a repertoire of competencies needed to negotiate relationships and safer sex; (4) the application of positive social skills embedded in everyday social situations; and (5) factual sexuality education. Conclusion: Insights into service-providers’ perceptions of the multi-dimensional nature of the sexual health needs of young people in state care, and the ways in which these service-providers justified their practice make visible the complex character of sex education and the degree of skill required to deliver it to those in state care.

scholarly journals The status of adolescent medicine: building a global adolescent workforce

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lana Lee ◽  
Krishna K. Upadhya ◽  
Pamela A. Matson ◽  
Hoover Adger ◽  
Maria E. Trent
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Adolescent Health ◽  
Health Workforce ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health Needs ◽  
Adolescent Medicine ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Global Workforce

Abstract Remarkable public health achievements to reduce infant and child mortality as well as improve the health and well-being of children worldwide have successfully resulted in increased survival and a growing population of young people aged 10–24 years. Population trends indicate that the current generation of 1.8 billion young people is the largest in history. However, there is a scarcity of dedicated resources available to effectively meet the health needs of adolescents and young adults worldwide. Growing recognition of the pivotal roles young people play in the cultures, societies, and countries in which they live has spurred an expanding global movement to address the needs of this special population. Building an effective global workforce of highly-skilled adolescent health professionals who understand the unique biological, psychological, behavioral, social, and environmental factors that affect the health of adolescents is a critical step in addressing the health needs of the growing cohort of young people. In this review, we aim to: 1) define a global assessment of the health needs for adolescents around the world; 2) describe examples of current training programs and requirements in adolescent medicine; 3) identify existing gaps and barriers to develop an effective adolescent health workforce; and 4) develop a call for targeted actions to build capacity of the adolescent health workforce, broaden culturally relevant research and evidence-based intervention strategies, and reinforce existing interdisciplinary global networks of youth advocates and adolescent health professionals to maximize the opportunities for training, research, and care delivery.

scholarly journals Sexual Behaviour and Fantasies in a Group of Young Italian Cohort

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 4327
Author(s):  
Marina Di Mauro ◽  
Giorgio Ivan Russo ◽  
Gaia Polloni ◽  
Camilla Tonioni ◽  
Daniel Giunti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Sexual Health ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health It ◽  
First Sexual Intercourse ◽  
Sexual Orientations ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Italian Cohort

Over the years, sexual behaviour has changed due to the growing interest in everything related to the sexual sphere. The purpose of the study was to collect information on the sexual habits and behaviours of Italian people of all ages, sexes and sexual orientations and to describe the patterns of sexual behaviour, with the aim of gaining a representative picture of sexuality in Italy, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants completed a survey with 99 questions about their sexual habits. In our group first sexual experiences occurred on average around the age of 15, whilst the median age of the first sexual intercourse was 17. The fantasies that most stimulated and excited our group (Likert scale ≥ 3) was having sex in public (63.9%), having sex with more than one person at the same time (59.4%), blindfolded sex (64.9%), being tied up (56.3%) and observing a naked person (48.6%). As for pornography, we have shown that 80% of our group watched porn at home, alone or from their smartphones. Our results have several practical implications for the areas of sex education and sexual health. It is necessary to safeguard the health of young people and support them increasing their sexual well-being.

scholarly journals Supporting the emotional needs of young people in care: a qualitative study of foster carer perspectives

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. e033317
Author(s):  
Rachel M Hiller ◽  
Sarah L Halligan ◽  
Richard Meiser-Stedman ◽  
Elizabeth Elliott ◽  
Emily Rutter-Eley
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Young People ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health Needs ◽  
Depth Information ◽  
Emotional Needs ◽  
Mental Health Systems ◽  
Mental Health Needs ◽  
Qualitative Focus Groups

ObjectivesYoung people who have been removed from their family home and placed in care have often experienced maltreatment and there is well-developed evidence of poor psychological outcomes. Once in care, foster carers often become the adult who provides day-to-day support, yet we know little about how they provide this support or the challenges to and facilitators of promoting better quality carer–child relationships. The aim of this study was to understand how carers support the emotional needs of the young people in their care and their views on barriers and opportunities for support.Design and participantsParticipants were 21 UK foster carers, recruited from a local authority in England. They were predominantly female (86%), aged 42–65 years old and ranged from those who were relatively new to the profession (<12 months’ experience) to those with over 30 years of experience as a carer. We ran three qualitative focus groups to gather in-depth information about their views on supporting their foster children’s emotional well-being. Participants also completed short questionnaires about their training experiences and sense of competence.ResultsOnly half of the sample strongly endorsed feeling competent in managing the emotional needs of their foster children. While all had completed extensive training, especially on attachment, diagnosis-specific training for mental health problems (eg, trauma-related distress, depression) was less common. Thematic analysis showed consistent themes around the significant barriers carers faced navigating social care and mental health systems, and mixed views around the best way to support young people, particularly those with complex mental health needs and in relation to reminders of their early experiences.ConclusionsFindings have important implications for practice and policy around carer training and support, as well as for how services support the mental health needs of young people in care.

scholarly journals Strategy to improve adolescent knowledge on sex education: scoping review

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 54-65
Author(s):  
Yustika rahmawati Rahmawati Pratami
Keyword(s):  
Sex Education ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
Unwanted Pregnancy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Hiv And Aids ◽  
Adolescent Sexual Behavior ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
Role Of Parents ◽  
Gender Based

Background : Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) plays an important role in preparing adolescents for safe, productive lives, and understanding about HIV and AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unwanted pregnancy, Gender-Based Violence (GBV), and Gender inequality still pose serious risks to their well-being. Study Aim : Determine the method most instrumental in improving adolescents' knowledge about adolescent sex education and teens identify constraints in obtaining information on sex education. Methods : Stage approach to review the literature using framework Arskey and O'Malley. The framework used to manage with PEOS research questions so that the search strategy uses 5 databases, viz. Pubmed, Science Direct, Wiley, Proquest, And Ebsco with the identification of the relevant study according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: Each method has its contribution in providing information and knowledge about sex education to adolescents, however the source of the greatest role in providing sex education information mostly came from digital sources both internet and TV media. The lack of role of parents and teachers to provide enough information about sex education is reflected in the results and the above discussion. Problems in adolescent sexual behavior that negatively due to inaccurate sources such as peer and the internet and added with minimal information from parents and teachers in which teenagers hoping to get information about sex education from parents and teachers.

Youth- and Peer-Led Sex Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alanna Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Health Behavior ◽  
Sexual Health ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Community Organizations ◽  
Health Behavior Change ◽  
Peer Educator ◽  
Aids Crisis ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Systems Thinking Approach

Peer-led and youth-led sex education primarily involves young people teaching other young people about sex, sexuality, and sexual health. This approach gained in popularity during the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s–1990s, as community organizations sought to address the unique sexual health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth, many of whom had been underserved in traditional sex education spaces. Since then, peer-led and youth-led sex education pedagogies have been implemented by researchers, educators, and community organizations working across a range of sites around the globe. Peer-led and youth-led sex education generally draws on assumptions that young people are better situated than adults to talk to their peers about sexual health and/or to model positive sexual health behavior. However, some have noted that this perspective constructs young people as a homogenous group and ignores the ways in which sexuality and sexual health intersects with other social factors. Furthermore, there is a general lack of consensus across interventions around who constitutes a “peer” and what constitutes “peer-led” sex education, resulting in the development of interventions that at times tokenize young people, without engaging them in meaningful ways. As a result, evaluations of many peer- and youth-led sex education pedagogies suggest that even as these pedagogies improve young people’s knowledge of sexual health-related topics, they often don’t result in long-term sexual health behavior change. However, many evaluations of peer- and youth-led sex education pedagogies do suggest that acting as a peer educator is of immense benefit to those who take on this role, pointing to the need for program developers to reconsider what effective sex education pedagogy might look like. A “social ecology” or “systems thinking” approach to youth sexual health may provide alternative models for thinking about the future of peer-led and youth-led sex education. These approaches don’t task peer- and youth-led sex education with the sole responsibility of changing young people’s sexual health-related outcomes, but rather situate peer-led sex education as one potential node in the larger confluence of factors that shape and constrain young people’s sexual health.

Parents’ attitudes toward comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education

2015 ◽  
Vol 115 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina R. Peter ◽  
Timothy B. Tasker ◽  
Stacey S. Horn
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Sexual Health ◽  
Physical Health ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sexual Health Information ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Abstinence Only ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

Purpose – Parents are sometimes perceived as barriers to providing comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education to young people. However, little is known about parents’ actual attitudes towards providing such broad information to young people. The purpose of this paper is to examine two different approaches to measuring parents’ attitudes towards sexuality information, a programme title approach and a topic-centred approach. Design/methodology/approach – Illinois parents of adolescents (n=301) indicated their knowledge about and attitudes towards sexuality education programmes and 18 sexual health topics via online survey. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine whether parents’ attitudes were more consistent with a programme-centred (i.e. abstinence-only, comprehensive) or a topic-centred (i.e. physical health, sexual and gender identity, pleasure, and relationships) approach. Findings – Parents were uncertain about what form of sexuality education was offered but most were equally comfortable with both abstinence-only and comprehensive programmes. Parents’ ratings of topics grouped significantly better by the topic-centred than the programme-centred approach. Parents rated all four subjects as important, with the highest mean ratings given to physical health topics. Further, parents’ ratings of importance by subject matter were largely independent of their reported programming preference. Together these findings provide evidence that parents believe it is important for their children to have access to a broad range of sexual health education information. Originality/value – This study is one of the first to document parents’ support for information for young people that goes beyond being comprehensive to include topics such as identities and pleasure. In addition, parents’ lack of knowledge about sexuality education programming may obscure their support for sexual health information. Measuring support by specific topics, however, can help to overcome issues due to parents’ lack of knowledge about programming.

Using digital storytelling to promote the sexual health and well-being of migrant and refugee young people: A scoping review

2017 ◽  
Vol 77 (7) ◽  
pp. 735-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica R Botfield ◽  
Christy E Newman ◽  
Caroline Lenette ◽  
Kath Albury ◽  
Anthony B Zwi
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Sexual Health ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Culturally Diverse ◽  
Digital Storytelling ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Knowledge Gaps ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
Digital Stories ◽  
Health And Well Being

Objective: Digital storytelling and other methods of self-expression and autobiography have become an increasingly important tool for those working with young people, including those from migrant, refugee or other ‘culturally diverse’ backgrounds. A structured scoping review was undertaken to better understand the potential value and challenges of using digital stories to promote the health and well-being of these diverse groups of young people and to identify key knowledge gaps. Design: The review process comprised a systematic search of the literature and strategic consultations with professionals working with young people in the area of sexual and reproductive health promotion and care. A descriptive-analytic method was used to collate and synthesise the literature and apply narrative and thematic analyses. Results: In total, 28 papers were deemed eligible for inclusion. Findings are presented as two analyses: what is known from the literature and key knowledge gaps. Identified themes included the use of digital stories as social activism and as research intervention, recognition of digital stories as complex terrain and recommendations for good practice. Three key gaps of particular relevance to our research aims were identified. These were (1) the lack of digital stories on sexual health and relationships by ‘culturally diverse’ young people in Australia, (2) the need for discussion of the ethical considerations of using digital storytelling and related methods in sexual health fields and (3) the value of exploring opportunities to employ digital methods as self-representation and autobiography to generate new knowledge and build organisational capacity. Conclusion: As confirmed in discussions with professionals working in the youth, migrant and sexual health sectors, the literature highlighted the many potential applications of digital storytelling to promoting the sexual health and well-being of young people from diverse backgrounds. Additional research is required to understand the particular ethical and contextual issues shaping, and at times constraining, this engagement in specific cultural contexts.

scholarly journals Good sex matters: Pleasure as a driver of online sex education for young people

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1480
Author(s):  
Lindsay van Clief ◽  
Elianne Anemaat
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
New Media ◽  
Sexual Health ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Sexual Experience ◽  
Positive Approach ◽  
Sexual Health Information ◽  
The Difference

Background There are few documented examples of online sex education platforms that make an impact on young people’s sexual health and wellbeing, yet research shows that new media has enormous potential to be harnessed in this way. The same is true for a pleasure-positive approach to sex education curricula and programmes. This research provides empirical evidence from the Love Matters' websites in Mexico, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, and India to highlight the prevalence and importance of talking about pleasure-related topics with young people. Methodology Love Matters is an online sex education platform targeting seven countries and attracting 30 million website visits in 2018. We analysed data through Google Analytics to explore the difference between sex education-focused content and pleasure-focused content and how young people engage with different types of sexual health information on the Love Matters platforms. Results Pleasure-focused content is 1.5 times more popular than sex education-focused content across all platforms. However, education-focused content attracts more organic traffic, suggesting young people purposefully search for sexual health information online. Users generally spend longer on the site engaging with sex education-focused content than pleasure-focused content. Conclusion This research provides empirical evidence from five countries in the Global South to support the notion that young people are actively looking for sexual health information that covers the full scope of sexual experience and pleasure, including – but not limited to – the reduction of health risks. This paper furthers the efforts to adopt a pleasure-positive approach to both online and offline sex education interventions.

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