Introduction
Healthy Respect: it’s all about improving the sexual health and relationships of young people through partnership working.
Healthy Respect is a Scottish Executive funded national health demonstration project, which is hosted by NHS Lothian. Healthy Respect was one of four projects outlined in the Government’s White Paper ‘Towards a Healthier Scotland’ (1999). It was set up to look at ways of supporting young people to make positive choices about their sexual health and wellbeing.
The project began in 2001 and continued until 2004 (Phase One). Following an interim year for planning (2004), a further three years funding was provided, taking our work up to March 2008 (Phase Two). During this phase and after 2008, appropriate elements of work and practice will be made available for integration both locally and nationally.
Healthy Respect staff and partners come from a variety of areas including education, the voluntary sector, youth work, community education, medical and nursing, branding, social marketing and health promotion.
This section provides you with an outline of our work, however there is a lot more to the project, so please visit the rest of our website, or contact us for further information.
Our vision
To demonstrate how working with young people from specific areas of Lothian, using a multi-faceted approach, can enable them to develop a healthy respect and a positive attitude to their own sexuality and that of others.
Our values
In working with professionals, parents, carers, and young people, Healthy Respect has a very clear value base. These values can be summarised as: respect, responsibility, inclusiveness and partnership. In addition, Healthy Respect advocates that the values of Respect and Responsibility shape and inform the behaviours, attitudes, aspirations and relationships of young people in Lothian. More on our values.
Guiding principles
The principles of Healthy Respect are based on:
- The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child; and
- The World Health Organisation working definition of Sexual Health: ‘Sexual health is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity.’
For Healthy Respect this means that young people’s sexual health is an integral part of their lives and services must reflect this within formal education, health and social services.
Our aims
- To create an environment that will lead to long term improvements in the sexual health and well being of young people in Midlothian and North West Edinburgh through a multi-faceted approach which links education, information and services for young people aged 10-18.
- To communicate the lessons from Healthy Respect in order to transfer learning and skills throughout Scotland.
Our objectives
Healthy Respect is working in partnership with a range of stakeholders to achieve a variety of objectives which cover: school based sex and relationships education, support for young people at risk, improved access to health care services, and an integrated communications programme which supports the above aims and promotes the values of Healthy Respect.
Working in partnership: the network
Healthy Respect is committed to, and dependent on, partnership working to deliver the multi-faceted programme of education, information and services to young people. Partnership working with organisations and local agencies is key to improving the sexual health and relationships of young people, and these agencies have an in-depth knowledge of community needs and networks. By working closely with our partner agencies we can facilitate links and communication, empower those already working in local areas, and demonstrate good practice. Ultimately, the network aims to facilitate a culture change, creating an environment that will lead to long term improvements in the sexual health and wellbeing of young people in Lothian. Refer to the Partners area for more information.
In Phase One our work was delivered across Lothian. During Phase Two, we continue to support our schools and drop-ins across Lothian from Phase One and carry out some focussed work in two areas: Midlothian and North West Edinburgh.
Throughout Phase Two we continue to:
- Support the delivery of educational programmes in primary, secondary, special and denominational schools. Our work with denominational schools is being developed in partnership with the Scottish Catholic Education Service. We will support the production of produce curricular resources and teacher training materials.
- Connect with hard to reach groups through community education, social work, voluntary organisations and the NHS.
- Develop new Healthy Respect accredited drop-ins within a variety of settings including schools and community venues. To ensure that we provide a high quality and consistent service to young people, Healthy Respect accredited drop-ins operate under the all I want – LIVE standards.
- Implement the Healthy Respect brand and an integrated communications programme across Lothian. A key method of promoting our values is through regular partner network events and high profile social marketing campaigns, which are delivered through the media.
After Phase Two we will be:
- Mainstreaming Healthy Respect in Lothian, in particular we want to work with partners to continue the provision of education information and services for young people
- Sharing learning from the internal and external evaluations of the programme for other professionals in Scotland to make use of.
Who we reach
During Phase Two we target young people aged between 10 and 18 years in Lothian. We continue to work closely with parents, carers, significant adults and professionals who work with them. In addition, we will also work with existing and new partners and local organisations from both statutory and voluntary sectors.
Evaluation
Evaluation is an integral part of the project, particularly given our demonstration status. We want to know which interventions are most effective and share that learning with other individuals and organisations.
Phase One Evaluation:
Evaluation of Phase One of Healthy Respect has now been completed and informed the planning of Phase Two. A team from the University of Aberdeen carried out an independent external evaluation, and internal evaluation was carried out by Healthy Respect. View the Healthy Respect Phase One External and Internal Evaluation Reports.
Phase Two Evaluation:
NHS Health Scotland has been commissioned by the Scottish Executive to manage a collaborative group of research organisations that will carry out an independent evaluation of Phase Two.
Members of this group are:
- The Centre for Integrated Health Care Research (based at Napier University in Edinburgh and Dundee University)
- The Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen), Edinburgh
- The Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Research Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.
This group works with the Healthy Respect’s internal evaluation to form the Integrated Evaluation Team.
They are assessing the:
- overall programme effectiveness
- impacts of variations in the delivery process and local contexts on programme effectiveness
- target groups assessment of the relevance and effectiveness of Healthy Respect’s services.
A Phase Two interim evaluation report will be available in March 2008. The final evaluation report will be available at the end of 2009.
Some reports on specific pieces of work are already available download.
Dissemination of learning
The Sexual Health and Wellbeing Network shares knowledge gained from the implementation and evaluation of Healthy Respect which is relevant to practice in the rest of Scotland. The Network also disseminates the wider international evidence on effective sexual health interventions.
For further information on the Network and/or if you want to know more about the evidence visit www.healthscotland.com/sexualhealth.
Contact us
If you have any queries and/or comments on any aspect of our work please contact us. Or you can contact The Sexual Health and Wellbeing Network shwln@health.scot.nhs.uk.
Healthy Respect charter
More on our values