Increasing access for those who face barriers

We continue to work closely with those who face access barriers, helping educate and empower people to take charge of their sexual health and providing dedicated services and resources that respond to particular access needs.

Championing HIV prevention in local communities

Brook is committed to the eradication of new HIV transmissions by 2030 and we deliver several HIV prevention initiatives both nationally and locally. Our well-established and recognised digital Take Charge campaign promotes PrEP, condom use and HIV testing, and in 23/24 reached over 240,800 people. 

In Buckinghamshire, Southend-on-Sea and the London Boroughs of Barnet, Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham, we deliver HIV prevention programmes aimed at fighting stigma, normalising testing and reducing late HIV diagnosis. Through a combination of community-based outreach and digital health promotion campaigns we reached more than 123,000 people in 23/24.  

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World aids day in southend: take charge and get tested

Read about Southend’s campaign

Tackling sexual violence and abuse

Through our Sexual Violence Education and Training Programme, funded by NHS England, we worked with our partner Let Me Know to deliver education sessions to 8,658 young people across seven London boroughs in 23/24. We upskilled more than 429 professionals with our training on managing a disclosure of sexual assault, pornography and responding to incidents of sexual harassment. Our sessions support educational settings and community groups to embed a whole school approach to addressing sexual violence and abuse. With our partner, the Women and Girls Network, we engaged with the Expert Working Group to develop new relationship education resources.  
 

Improving health outcomes for Black African and Caribbean communities in London 

As part of our Love Sex Life project in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisha

m we held a panel discussion event at Lambeth Town Hall to mark World AIDS Day 2023. The sell-out event raised awareness of the experiences of Black people living with HIV, with a panel featuring broadcaster Richie Brave, Dr Nneka Nwokolo and Florence Eshalome MP. 

Brook also delivered a social media campaign to promote condom-use among young Black men in Lambeth Southwark and Lewisham, as part of our condom distribution scheme across the three boroughs. Reaching more than 18,300 young people, we combined video content from Brook experts and micro-influencers to tackle myths and misconceptions about condom-use while raising awareness of local C-card provision.  

Improving access for neurodivergent young people

We are committed to providing dedicated services and resources that respond to particular access needs, while retaining a universal offer that is open to all. 

In 23/24, we began implementing the recommendations from our consultation with neurodivergent young people across England to find out about their experiences of sexual health services.  

Our 16-19s participation forum supported with an accessibility audit of our core clinical sites to assess their accessibility for people with additional access needs. We gained invaluable insights and have started to implement the recommendations in our clinics with a full report being published in 2024/25. Watch our Instagram reel about confidentiality.

Working with young illustrator, Rachel Jardine, we commissioned a suite of accessible images to improve access to sexual health and wellbeing information for neurodivergent young people. Our new images now feature in our education resources and on our digital channels and, in 2024/25, we will continue to produce illustrations. 

Each illustration that I have created on this project has undertaken the same accessibility treatment that exists across Brook’s services, ensuring that these illustrations adhere to the highest possible accessibility guidance.

Rachel Jardine, Illustrator

In February 2024, Brook was a guest on the podcast Diversity and Inclusion: Satisfying the tickbox? We spoke about neurodivergence, sexual health and the work we are doing to make our clinical and education services even more accessible. 

Staff couldn’t have done more to help me. Catered extremely well for my additional needs with patience and care, friendly, polite from booking appointment to the treatment at my appointment they made what would usually be a difficult experience for me effortless.

Brook service user, Blackburn

We worked with the Centre for Expertise on CSA and the NSPCC to drive forward our 1:1 work for neurodivergent young people who are the victims of CSA and to explore how we could support work to stop neurodivergent young people developing perpetrator behaviours.