Tackling sexual health inequalities: Work in progress with young people at risk

Abstract

Many groups face one or more barriers to maximising their sexual wellbeing. Improving the consistency, accessibility, quality, cultural competence and ethos of lifelong learning and appropriate and responsive sexual health services can reduce these barriers. However, there are groups whose sexual health is particularly poor (mainly due to increasing STIs and/or unintended pregnancies) or those who are hard to reach for whom additional support is required. Healthy Respect is a Scottish Executive funded national health demonstration project that is hosted by NHS Lothian. The project is tackling sexual health inequalities with young people at risk through partnership initiatives with Social Work, Community Learning & Development, Pupil Referral Units and Learning Disability Organisations. These initiatives have highlighted the specific support needs of workers at strategic and grassroots levels, and a range of barriers and challenges for this work. This paper describes the range of pilot initiatives underway, the evaluation processes designed to assess their impact, and the initial learning from this work.