Improving Pornography Education in Wales

Christian Webb (he/they), an Education and Wellbeing Specialist at Brook, talks about a recent project they led with young people and professionals to improve the education young people in Wales receive about pornography.

On almost a daily basis at Brook, we hear about the impact of pornography on young people and their increasing exposure to it. Recent research from the Children’s Commissioner for England showed that young people are exposed to pornography at a young age. Despite this, 58% of 16-17 year olds receive little or no education about pornography. 

It’s clear that young people are not receiving the education they need about the things they may see online.

It’s vital that schools, and those working with young people, are equipped to respond and support young people. With this in mind, Brook was awarded money from the National Lottery Community Fund last autumn to improve the education young people in Wales receive about pornography.

We used this funding to work with seven schools across Cardiff and Rhondda Cynon Taff to improve the education session we deliver to young people about pornography. We also updated our information and resources and trained professionals across Wales to better understand pornography and its impact on young people. To make sure the project was accessible to everyone in Wales, it was delivered in both English and Welsh.

What did young people tell us? 

We wanted a better insight into the experiences and views of young people when it came to pornography so we asked them a series of questions.

We found that:

Improving our education session

We then delivered our education session about pornography to get young people’s feedback during and after the session.

63 of the 67 young people that took part felt the session gave them all the information they needed.

Despite the positive feedback, young people felt that there were still ways we could improve the session which we were keen to understand and respond to. They told us that they wanted:

We directly incorporated their feedback into our education session: Our session now includes sections on identifying an unhealthy relationship with porn and steps you can take to address it as well as discussing the pressure to watch porn and how it’s okay to not watch, or want to watch, it. We also reworked and reworded our ‘Myth and Reality’ activity to include more about body image pressures on boys and young men as well as girls and young women and how porn can lead to harmful stereotypes in terms of race, gender and sexuality.

What else has been improved as a result of the project?

We also asked young people to review our pornography education handout and our webpage on pornography. The feedback was very positive, with many young people saying they really liked the look and feel of both resources.

However, young people told us that our website was a bit too wordy and needed breaking up visually with drop-downs, images, quotes and videos. When it came to our handout, they wanted some small changes to highlight how not everyone will want to watch pornography, and some tips on where to go for help. 

We shared this feedback with our Digital and Communications team who have rewritten and reformatted our webpage on pornography and are updating our educational handout. We’ve also recorded some Instagram reels on pornography, so keep an eye out for these on our Instagram page!

What did we learn during the project? 

Young people are desperate to learn about pornography, especially in school.

Young people want open, non-judgmental environments to ask questions and also benefit from anonymous platforms that enable them to ask questions they might feel uncomfortable asking in front of their peers.

When we asked young people to describe how they felt after learning about pornography in school – one popular response was feeling relief/relieved, which says a lot about young people’s anxieties when it comes to talking about pornography. 

We learned the importance of working across teams to ensure we’re effectively listening and responding to the views of young people. We utilised expertise from participation, policy, data, communications, and education teams and supported our facilitators with the best training and opportunities to debrief and reflect on the comments and questions raised in each session.

We learned the importance of celebrating and recognising the contributions of young people.

Our education and communications work has been strengthened as a result of young people’s feedback, so it’s vital we recognise and thank young people for sharing their views with us. To celebrate their invaluable contribution, we’ve circulated participation certificates to the young people who took part in the project, and we plan on sharing the changes we’ve made as a result of their feedback through an online celebration event.

What happens next?  

Thanks to the feedback from young people, we’ll be delivering our improved pornography education session in schools across England and Wales. We’ll continue to update our website and make small changes to our pornography education handout, which is available to download for free on our website. We’ll also continue to train professionals on pornography, including sharing feedback from young people about what they want professionals to know.  

If you would like us to come and deliver our updated pornography education session to young people in your school, college or youth group, or if you you and your staff team would like training on pornography and its impact on young people, you can browse our Education and Training opportunities or contact training@brook.org.uk.