Meeting my key supporter

Today I had the privilege of meeting my works key financial supporter. I could not do my job with out his kind donatitions. Well I work up early to go meet him and I've got to be honest I was nervous. Whilst I was pretty sure that he would not object to my work, I was keenly aware that the long term existance of the project could depend on this meeting. The project has garenteed funding for the next 1 and a half years. Beyond that we do not have any guarentees. In fact he has publicaly said that he will not fund the work after summer 2011. After meeting him and his wife I wish this wasn't the case. He is a fantastic guy who has a clear passion for work which makes a differance and for work which builds in sustanability.

Before this meeting (and my pre-meeting prep) I had not put a lot of thought into sustanability but Chester is in a good state for sustainability. Mainly because the model we are using is to get local youth workers from local churches to be passionate about the work and therefore committed to the work. Then if my source of funding did dry up and the role had to stop hopefully the youth workers would carry on the work. Also as a city I believe we are above average in working together and hopefully this sense of community would encourage the project to continue.

If in a years time it looks likely my role will be ending soon I know I will focus my efforts on how best to encourage and facilitate this mutual support.

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Agree - Disagree Sex and Relationship Statements

Today I shared another resource listing the agree disagree statement I often use in Relationship lessons. I find agree disagree activities as a bit of a two edge sword. Sometimes they are great and sometimes they just seem flat.

I think agree/disagree activities work well if young people in the group do not all think the same. The true value in agree/disagree activities is the discussion it can stir up. The discussion is the point where young people learn things and develop their attitudes. The statements need to be crafted to try and divide opinion and stir up this discussion. When the statements do not divide group opinion then rarely will I get a good follow up discussion. The problem is that the statements that work well for one group do not work for another group.

The temptation is to try and pick truly controversial issues but I have had as much success with the historically controversial issues (abortion, porn etc) as the more standard issues (loyalty, respect, condoms, etc). T…

Playing with figures of sexual health

A single research project can be reported on in different ways depending on what you want to do. Take the following two articles both reporting on the same research by the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine. The research shows how many girls in the study thought the HPV vaccine also reduced their risk of catching other STIs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083260/One-teenage-girls-thinks-HPV-vaccine-cuts-risk-contracting-STDs.html
http://www.healthnews.com/en/news/Some-Girls-Overestimate-HPV-Vaccine-Protection/3hFUdOev1E8wSjg313QPZq/

The daily mail report emphasis 1 in 4, I believe this is because they are trying to show how it is a big problem. Where as Health News states "show that a small percentage of girls" I believe this is because they are trying to show it is not a big problem. Both quoting the same study with the same figure of 23.6% of girls having the HPV vaccine believing it will reduce their risk of catching other STIs.

Now this is a common o…

The need to talk about porn and release all the data

Today childline launched anew campaign (FAPZ)to help young people make sense of the powerful influence online porn can have on young people. I welcome any new or renewed effort to help tackle this issue. What ever adults personally think about adults consuming porn, it clearly is not meant for young people. Below is a tweet from Simon Blake (CEO of Brook) Agree @NSPCC we must talk about porn at home, school & community. Whatever you think about porn it is not place CYP should learn about sex
— Simon Blake (@Simonablake) March 31, 2015 It is very worrying to hear Childlinereporting high numbers of calls to their phone line where online porn is a key issue. And this will just be a tip of the iceberg of the influence porn is having. When I talk about Childline in high schools I have meet many young people who think its not for them because they aren't a child so they wont ring it. Such a shame.

However, the NSPCC could strengthen their campaign by releasing the full details of the…

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