How I got here: education and wellbeing specialist

Francesca Fiennes tells us how she became an Education and Wellbeing Specialist at Brook, and what she loves most about her role.

I work mainly in Hounslow but I can travel all over London do deliver RSE. I work part-time for Brook and I’m also doing my masters at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I’m studying Public Health, in the health promotion stream, so it goes hand in hand with my role at Brook. I’m excited about my thesis because I want to interview people from Brook and look at how pornography impacts health outcomes for young people.

There’s little research into the impact of pornography beyond looking at harmful sexual behaviour, so I think it will be really interesting to look at it from a sex education perspective. 

I started my career in midwifery, but after 6 months I left because I found the NHS a difficult environment to work in. So then I went to university and in 2019 I finished my Social Sciences degree in Anthropology and Sociology, I also volunteered for Sexpression, and I got such positive feedback for my talks on sexual health that I thought this must be my path! For everyone at Sexpression, working for Brook was the ultimate goal, and for me too. So when I saw the job advertised for Let’s talk. Period across London I had to go for it. Things were a bit complicated then because of the length of the contract and then the pandemic and going on furlough, but I am so happy that it’s all worked out and I am still here after almost 3 years! 

One of the things I love most about Brook is the fact that I’ve been able to work flexibly around my masters. My work/life balance is really healthy.

I’ve got other friends at uni who haven’t had that same level of flexibility at work and they’ve had to take annual leave to go to university.  

What I also love is the fact that in our team we have worked really closely with our clinical colleagues so you get to share expertise and learn from each other about the types of questions young people are asking. Before Covid we would go to in-person safeguarding supervision meetings (these are meetings held for the clinical and education teams to meet together and discuss safeguarding cases). It was so helpful and interesting to hear about clinical cases because it helps us educators to keep more young people safe in schools and the nurses could tell us what is commonly presenting in clinics and what to look for, and vice versa.  

Some sexual health clinics are out of touch with what is going on with young people in classrooms, and we hear about it when they go to other clinics and they feel like they haven’t been listened to or understood. That’s why I love delivering education sessions near our Euston clinic; because I know I can signpost people to a clinic that will treat them well and with dignity.  

Having worked at Brook during the pandemic, I saw how quickly we adapted to online delivery of our education and training, and I was so proud to be part of that change but for me personally, online training was much harder than face to face so I’m really relieved to be back in schools and classrooms. 

Sessions with young people can be so great and we can have much more open conversations when we’re there in person.  

It was interesting to see the difference in young people once we were back in the classrooms. Because young people had been living their lives online, watching TV and consuming social media – Tiktok had blown up too – the kinds of questions that young people were asking were different to those pre-pandemic. Lots more questions about online relationships, about consent and kink and porn. It might also be that since RSE became mandatory, young people are more clued up about STIs and contraception and that’s why we’re getting the more extreme questions. It’s hard to know, that’s why we need more research! 

I like being part of a big organisation with such a proud history, and it’s a privilege to work alongside such amazing colleagues. Everyone is so passionate about helping people, I think the passion is unparalleled.  

I also really enjoy the variety of my work. As well as delivering in classrooms and assemblies, I also teach professionals and I deliver one to one wellbeing work with young people. And I also always look for more opportunities to learn more and to educate people and be a spokesperson for Brook. Last year I took part in a panel at Oxford Brookes University about consent, and I’m currently working on some video content for Sexual Health Week in September. I’ve been doing the same job for over 2.5 years now but there is always something new. For anyone thinking about starting a career at Brook, I would 100% recommend you go for it – you won’t regret it!