Following on the heels of my 2015 presentation to the School Nurses’ International Conference, the ExPLISSIT Malta (2015) Conference, then the 2018 RCN School Nurses Conference, I was asked back to give a key note presentation in 2021. This time, I focused the presentation on a recent national report I had been co-author to: the Student Relationships, Sex and Sexual Health Survey, of the Higher Education Policy Unit (HEPI Report 139).
School Nurses are currently facing very challenging times. Commissioning of services, especially in England, mean that many are no longer providing input into Relationship and Sex Education programmes; some may are no longer commissioned to provide sexual health services or confidential ‘drop-in’ clinics, the latter being a prime opportunity for young people to discuss sexuality and sexual and reproductive health maters.
The conundrum facing school nursing services is how to adequately address the numerous sexual health related matters in practice – especially as prevention, proactively – if they are so removed from the requirement to provide sch services. Equally, how to they develop their RSE-related education and maintain their skills, if they are constantly side-lined as service providers in a market-driven ideology?
Sharing Learning Outside the Classroom 