Professionals

Healthy Respect’s education and training work is one aspect of its multi-faceted approach integrating education, information and services.

During the demonstration period of the project, Healthy Respect provided training and resources/educational programmes to teachers and other professionals to enable them to deliver sexual health and relationships education (SRE) programmes to young people in secondary schools and in catholic and non-denominational primary schools.

 Schools continue to be encouraged to use their involvement with Healthy Respect when seeking accreditation as a Health Promoting School. For more information about Healthy Respect and Health Promoting Schools have a look at the "Health Promoting Schools Briefing Paper."

In order to reach young people not accessing schools, or at particular risk of poor sexual health outcomes, Healthy Respect offered training and support to the professionals who already had relationships with those young people. A tailored programme, including training and resources around SRE for social workers, youth workers, teachers and support workers in special schools, community educators and voluntary organisations was developed. Building on this work started during demonstration, Healthy Respect, in partnership with others, continues to support the delivery of high quality training opportunities.

Training for professionals

Healthy Respect uses existing training resources, and where gaps are identified, develops its own to ensure professionals are confident and competent to deliver sexual health and relationships interventions with the young people they work with. Occasionally Healthy Respect will commission partners or other organisations to deliver specialist training best provided by experts.

The Respect, Doing It and SHARE training courses described here were offered by Healthy Respect during Phase Two. Respect training is available through from Healthy Respect and Local Authority Education Departments. SHARE and Doing It training courses are offered by the Health Promotion Service.

Respect training

Throughout Phase Two of the demonstration period of the project, Healthy Respect delivered one-day training to Midlothian primary school teachers, youth workers and school nurses to support the delivery of the Respect programme, produced by The Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust, to 10-12 year old pupils, both in schools and informal settings.

Building on this work, Healthy Respect Lothian will continue to support local authorities in providing this training. For more information on the Respect programme visit the resources for professionals.

Doing it training

Developed and delivered in partnership with the Health Opportunities Team (HOT), this one-day SRE delivery skills programme was offered to a wide range of professionals delivering SRE with young people. The aims of the training were to raise skills, knowledge and confidence in those facilitating groupwork in a variety of settings, for those inexperienced in teaching.

Sexual Health And Relationships Education (SHARE) training

Healthy Respect developed and delivered 3-day training in Sexual Health & Relationships Education (SHARE) to a wide range of professionals throughout Phase Two, and in addition offered twice yearly Continuing Professional Development (CPD) sessions for practitioners. SHARE and associated CPD is now administrated and delivered by the Health Promotion Service, which is part of the Healthy Respect Lothian partnership network.

These training courses continue to be available from Healthy Respect:

Making choices, keeping safe: sex, relationships and young people with learning disabilities

Young people with learning disabilities can be at higher risk of poor sexual health outcomes. This one-day training course aims to increase confidence, knowledge and awareness of the way in which values and attitudes impact on approaches to working with young people with learning disabilities. Visit the  http://www.mcks.scot.nhs.uk for more information.

Sexual health issues for vulnerable young people

This half day session is an introduction and basic awareness session for social workers, social work assistants, youth workers, housing officers, staff in children and families centres, staff in residential care, and other professionals working with vulnerable young people in a non-school setting.

Sexual health issues for young people in youth work settings

This one-day course aims to raise participants’ comfort in discussing sexual health and relationships issues with young people, and in offering planned interventions in a youth work setting.

Specialist training courses offered through the Targeted Sex & Relationships Support network (TSRS) in partnership with other agencies:

Professionals working with young people excluded from or not accessing mainstream schools were invited to become part of Healthy Respect’s Targeted Sex & Relationships Support (TSRS) network. This is now a well-established network, which meets twice yearly, through which professionals working with vulnerable young people can access support and specialist training, usually delivered through partnership with other agencies. Examples of training courses requested and delivered during demonstration include -

• Working with young people who display sexually harmful behaviours
• Working with young people who have experienced sexual abuse
• How confidentiality works
• Young people, sex and the media
• Supporting young people at risk of sexual exploitation

Healthy Respect Learning & Supervision Group

Healthy Respect offers the opportunity to take part in a free, closed group of around 8 professionals who have completed some sex and relationships training, and who work with vulnerable young people. Groups meet six times over a 3-month period to support each other in taking forward a sexual health intervention, either 1:1 work or group work.  The purpose of the group is to offer extra support for professionals to deliver purposeful and educational interventions on sex and relationships.

Education resources

Healthy Respect has always, and continues to highlight and use resources developed by others, as well as developing its own.

Schools Sex & Relationships Education (SRE) Framework (nurseries, schools and other settings, 3-18 years)

The Framework aims to promote a holistic approach to SRE through the provision of clear and user friendly guidelines, curricular programmes and classroom resources. It is designed to be practical and informative, providing a clear framework within which teachers, and others working in schools can build an effective SRE programme. It is hoped the Framework will help raise the confidence of those teaching in schools and lead to a high quality, consistent educational experience for children and young people. It has been produced in response to the many requests from professionals in schools for more detailed guidance on what should be delivered as part of a comprehensive programme of sexual health and relationships education.

The SRE Framework has been provided free of charge to all schools: Nursery, Primary, Secondary, Special and Independent schools across Lothian. It has also been sent to a range of agencies and professionals working in partnership to deliver sexual health and relationships education, and can be adapted for use in other settings, such as young people’s units, youth work and further education.

The Schools SRE Framework includes additional resources:

• Scottish Executive (Now Government) Guidance on SRE for schools and parents
• In Confidence series - guidance for professionals on confidentiality
• A guide for teachers on LGBT issues

Download the Schools SRE Framework by visiting the professionals page in our Downloads and Campaigns section

Sexual Health & Relationships Education (secondary schools and other education settings, 14-16 years)

NHS Health Scotland is Scotland's national agency for health education, health promotion and health advice and information. The SHARE programme was produced as part of a research project with HEBS and the Medical Research Council in 1992. The programme has been revised and updated periodically, and the most recent edition was published in March 2006.

A group of researchers with involvement in studies of young people’s sexual behaviour worked together to develop a sustainable school sex education programme that was research based, drawn from the best existing materials and to be rigorously evaluated.

The broad aims of the SHARE programme are to:

• improve the quality of young people’s romantic and sexual relationships, particularly in terms of
• reducing anxiety and regretted sexual behaviours
• reduce the incidence of unsafe sex
• reduce the rate of unwanted pregnancies

Any professional planning to use SHARE is required to undertake a 3-day training course. For more information on training, link to Health Promotion. To find out more about the SHARE programme, visit NHS Health Scotland’s website at www.healthscotland.com

Respect (primary schools and support units, 10-12 year olds)

In 1998, the Zero Tolerance Charitable Trust published the results of a study into young people’s attitudes to violence, sex and relationships. It documented widespread tolerance of violence against women in certain circumstances.

As a result of the research, the Trust developed and piloted the Respect Initiative jointly with local authorities in Scotland. The Initiative included an integrated primary prevention programme with an education focus. Respect programmes were developed for use in primary, secondary and youth group settings. The aims of the programme can be summarised as follows:

• To encourage young people to develop healthy relationships
• To promote respect for self, respect for others and to respect difference
• To challenge and decrease the tolerance of violence against women amongst young people 
• To encourage a sense of social responsibility.

For more information on the Respect programme, used in Midlothian primary schools during Healthy Respect Phase Two, visit http://www.zerotolerance.org.uk

Home Activity Resource: Primary pack

This resource, produced by Healthy Respect, provides four SRE homework activities. Its purpose is to engage parents in SRE, and to improve discussion at home about SRE topics, thus helping schools and parents to work in partnership when it comes to SRE delivery. Two of the activities link directly to classroom sessions from the Respect programme by Zero Tolerance, and deal with equal opportunities, discrimination, peer pressure and media messages. The remaining two activities deal with learning about beliefs and attitudes to sexual health and relationships, and the links between periods, pregnancy and birth. The resource is suitable for use at the upper stages in both non-denominational and catholic primary schools. Healthy Respect has also produced a leaflet, which schools can send to parents to introduce the materials.

You can download a copy of the resource pack and leaflet from the Downloads & Campaigns section.

Home Activity Resource: Secondary pack

This resource, produced by Healthy Respect, provides eight SRE homework activities, designed to tie in with SHARE, or other classroom resources. Its purpose is to engage parents in SRE, and to improve discussion at home about SRE topics, thus helping schools and parents to work in partnership when it comes to SRE delivery. Themes include learning about sex and relationships, puberty, family attitudes to sex and relationships, safer sex practices, sex in the media, dealing with pressures, attitudes to unplanned pregnancy and condom values. The resource is suitable for use with students in S1-S4 in non-denominational schools. Healthy Respect has also produced a leaflet, which schools can send to parents to introduce the materials.

You can download a copy of the resource pack and leaflet from the Downloads & Campaigns section.

Called to Love

Called to Love is a programme of teaching resources that is designed for use mainly in Catholic secondary schools. It was developed jointly by Healthy Respect and the Scottish Catholic Education Service and was launched in November 2007. For more information, visit the Called to Love website at http://www.calledtolove.org/.

Other education resources

Further resources produced by Healthy Respect include:

• SRE/RME Self-evaluation Tool
• Integrating Healthy Respect: A pack for secondary schools
• Respect by Zero Tolerance workbook
• Addressing LGBT Issues Toolkit
• Developing Together Boxes
• Health Promoting Schools briefing paper

We have also used the following resources developed by others:

• Making Choices, Keeping Safe (Health Promotion, Edinburgh)
• Pathways to Sexual Health (Lothian Health)

For more information or to download Healthy Respect resources, go to Downloads and Campaigns

The website of Learning & Teaching Scotland (LTS) has a section on resources to support SRE.

Called to Love

he programme, launched November 2007, is based on existing guidelines published by the Catholic Education Commission to direct the teaching of Relationships and Moral Education in Catholic schools.  It also complies with national guidance on the conduct of sex and relationships education.

What was Healthy Respect’s Role?

Healthy Respect worked with the Scottish Catholic Education Service (SCES) to define the aims of the programme and the content outline. SCES and Catholic school teaching staff wrote the materials, which were critiqued by Healthy Respect against available evidence in this area. Any suggested changes were debated and compromises reached: SCES had the final say on the content of the materials. Healthy Respect’s education and training work is one aspect of its multi-faceted approach integrating education, information and services.

What approach has been adopted?

The approach taken throughout the programme is intended to ensure that young people are appropriately informed about important aspects of their physical, sexual, emotional and moral development.  Called to Love promotes a Catholic Christian vision of loving relationships and recognises the significant role of parents in educating their children for loving relationships.

The programme supports relationships education within the context of love, respect, responsibility and moral decision-making which fully recognises Catholic teaching on the sacrament of marriage as a sign of loving, faithful and exclusive commitment.

The key messages for young people, which will emerge from the Called to Love programme, include:

• You are a special human being, created by God in his own image and likeness . . .
• You are called to love . . . and to love others as you are loved by God.
• You are called to show respect for all people, even when their views and actions, their values and beliefs, are different from your own.
• You are loved by God who shows compassion when things go wrong . . .  who forgives when your actions fail to match your ideals.

How is the programme being implemented?

To support teachers in the implementation of this programme, training will be provided by SCES to complement the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) resources which are provided within the resource pack. 

Involving Young People Enhancing Information Service Development