Healthy Respect is committed to involving young people and using their feedback to ensure our activity is relevant to them. Healthy Respect advocates this approach for others working in sexual health and relationships. By getting involved, young people can learn new skills, develop confidence and make a real difference within their school, youth club or community.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) gives young people the right to participate in key decisions that affect their lives. These rights are explained in great detail within its 54 articles. In particular, Article 12 states that children and young people have the right to express their views on any matter affecting them. The convention also covers children’s and young people’s rights to education and healthcare.
Benefits of involving young people
We understand that involving young people in the development of our work can have great benefits for the young people involved, and can help us to ensure that our services and education programmes are relevant for young people. By getting involved, young people can learn new skills, develop confidence and make a real difference within their school, youth club or community. They can help ensure that new programmes or services are relevant to them.
Healthy Respect is committed to increasing the level of involvement of young people in sexual health and relationships developments, in ways that are both active and participative.
An example of involving young people
Mystery Shopper Initiative
From January – April 2006, Healthy Respect worked in partnership with LGBT Youth Scotland to develop the Mystery Shopper initiative, which explored young people’s experiences of accessing sexual health and relationships services in Lothian. Young people were recruited as volunteer ‘mystery shoppers’ and were supported to visit and review services in their area. Download a copy of this report from our Downloads & Campaigns section.
Feedback was then given to agencies who had been visited to help them improve services and make them more accessible for young people.
Service Development
Supporting Education and Training