Young Mums Peer Education Project in Oldham
As featured in The Guardian 7 June 2003
In 2002 Brook in Oldham, in partnership with Lifelong learning, ran a training course for teenage mothers in peer education and mentoring. The 20 week accredited training programme enabled seventeen young women to gain four GCSE equivalent qualifications in peer education, counselling level one (delivered by Off the Record) and childcare level one as well as a certificate in sexual health. For many of the young people, the course was a stepping stone helping them with basic skills as well as personal development. Comments from those who took part ranged from, “I felt very proud of myself,” to, “I felt the course was a great experience and I hope to continue at a higher level.”
Ten of the young women who graduated are now working as volunteers for Realities, a peer education project organised by Brook in Oldham. The trained peer educators hold interactive workshops for both young men and women in secondary schools, youth clubs and other community settings. Personal experiences of being teenage parents are an important part of the sessions, leading to discussion of the roles, responsibilities and prejudices encountered by young parents as well as the wider issues of contraception, sexually transmitted infections and relationships. The feedback from workshops is very positive and some comments from young people have included: "It was very good because it was easy to talk to someone my age,” and "I think it was easy to understand, coming from people who know what its like."
Also concerned that services for teenage mothers better reflect the needs of young parents, Brook’s volunteer peer educators have been running workshops for professionals in the sexual health field. The aim of the professional workshops is to enable local services for teenage parents to be more effective and inclusive, reducing the barriers many teenage parents still find in accessing main stream services.
The young women not only wanted to educate other young people about the realities of becoming a teenage parent, but they also wanted to provide peer support to other parents. The result was a new peer led drop in service called CHAT (Communication, Help, Advice and Trust). CHAT aims to provide a safe informal space for young mums run by young mums. It is a place where young parents can drop in for emotional support as well as advice on medical and sexual health services and information on courses and training.
If you would like more information about the peer education or mentoring work run by Brook in Oldham contact Emma Popay, Education Outreach co-ordinator at oldhambrook@aol.com or phone 0161 627 0200.
The Brook in Oldham peer education project was featured in an article in The Guardian G2 7/7/2003
