Today marks the start of Sexual Health Week. Being safe means feeling empowered to access contraception, testing and treatment. It means understanding consent, healthy relationships and pleasure. It also means providing relationships and sex education (RSE) that gives young people the tools to navigate the world safely – both online and offline – and delivering safe, accessible sexual health services, wherever people need them. That’s why for #SHW23 we’re #PlayingItSafe!
This year’s campaign aims to shout louder than ever to evidence the positive impact of RSE, promote consent and pleasure as key components of safer sex, and celebrate experts across the sector working tirelessly to keep people safe from harm.
Hope House Sexual Health Services
Hope House provides sexual health services that support healthy relationships and sexual wellbeing across Gloucestershire. The service offers free, friendly, non-judgmental, confidential testing, treatment and advice for sexually transmitted infections, as well as a wide range of contraception options, including emergency contraception, contraceptive pills, implants, injections, patches, coils and condoms.
It also provides an HIV and Pregnancy Advisory Service; both of which are free, confidential and available to anybody – even those aged under 16.
To find out more about the services available at Hope House visit: www.hopehouse.nhs.uk
Throughout the week Brook will be drawing on almost 60 years of safeguarding experience, demonstrating the links between mental health and sexual health and amplifying the voices of those who face health inequalities, including neurodivergent people.
You can access online events relating to safeguarding and relationships and sex education via Brook here: https://www.brook.org.uk/shw/
