SRE in schools should be high on the public health agenda

Last week I attended a conference on commissioning for sexual health. It was aimed at those professionals who are about to take new roles in local government charged with raising standards in public health through appropriate commissioning of services.  Appeals for continuity and joined-up-thinking were made by several speakers representing third sector organisations already well established in the business of providing sexual health services.

 

Unsurprisingly it became clear that there was little confidence in Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) in schools being a major contributor to sexual health.  The main reason given being that both the previous and the current coalition governments have fought shy of making SRE a mandatory part of the National Curriculum.  This lack of political will has been exacerbated by the growing numbers of academies struggling to establish their financial stability coupled with the withdrawal of public funding from local education authorities and SRE advisors.  Put simply, there is little incentive for schools to set about teaching SRE with any rigour.

Increasing body of evidence showing SRE impacts of sexual health

Consequently there was very little discussion about the role of SRE as an effective contributor to primary prevention within sexual health.  This is, we believe, profoundly misguided and ignores an increasing body of evidence that SRE does indeed have a positive impact on sexual health both in the short and the longer term.

 Lindberg and Maddow-Zimet of theGuttmaker Institute have recently published a paper demonstrating the short and long term benefits derived from comprehensive sex education while UNESCO has also reported on the extreme cost-effectiveness of sex education in schools in a study of programmes spanning six nations.  Our own published findings on the effectiveness of the Apause programme and the NFER Report on Apause, alongside the mass of evidence collected the late Doug Kirby and colleagues should be enough to persuade commissioners that purchasing an evidence and theory-based programme and implementing it in targeted schools is very likely to prove a cost effective strategy in primary prevention.

Indeed, Alison Hadley of the Teenage Pregnancy Unit (TPU), said as much when she suggested clusters of schools identified as having high conception rates could be targeted for a commissioned sex education programme which included good training for teachers.

Apause was always designed to be rolled-out as part of a primary prevention strategy and can be established in schools quickly and at low cost.  The training was highly praised in the NFER report. We have an academic pedigree in evaluation and related technologies and are able to offer excellent evaluation services at very competitive prices.

During the ten year teenage pregnancy strategy it was not policy for a government office to give backing to an individual programme such as Apause which was unfairly criticized for being a 'one-size-fits-all' solution. The preferred approach being to spend very large sums of money on a more generic continued professional development (CPD)  training for teachers in Personal Social & Health Education (PSHE). The rationale being that it would enable schools to develop their own, needs-based, more locally sensitive SRE curricula.  Successive surveys and reports testify to the ineffectiveness of this strategy with the delivery of SRE in our schools being largely inadequate and 'patchy'. This very 'patchiness' is a major weakness in the deployment of CPD as a public health strategy. Reductions in teenage pregnancy rates (albeit only achieveing 50% of the TPU's published target) have arguably been achieved not through reducing risk taking behaviour, but by making hormonal contraception more readily accessible through more young person friendly sexual health services.

So SRE in our schools remains in a parlous state with little likelihood of it improving under this government.  This can only be described as a tragedy which deprives yet another generation of our young people their rights to  a comprehensive sex education, denying them the skills and knowledge to manage their relationships and sexual health effectively.

Why could Apause work where other approaches have failed?

It is rooted in social cognitive theory creating powerful social expectations which promote assertiveness and negotiation skills, postponement of first intercourse, effective use of contraception and local services and a non-stigmatising ethos.

It achieves this through two unique approaches:

a) classroom-based peer education,

and

b) a script-based approach for ease of facilitation by novice practitioners and rapidity of engagement by learners

The scripted approach is not designed to be restrictive but is more a point of departure, encouraging facilitators to embrace challenging language, ideas and terminology.  On subsequent delivery of the Apause sessions teachers feel increasingly competent to use more personalised language and classroom management techniques.

Contact me, David Evans on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or by phone ( 01392 829450) to discuss the possibility of Apause as a public health investment.