Hello!
I’m Gill Leno - you might have seen me hanging around the sex and
relationships forum under my Scope community alter ego @PSHEExpert. Usually I am doing my best to answer
questions or make suggestions in response to questions from other forum
members, but when I was asked to write a guest blog I thought it would be a
good opportunity to talk about something which I have been thinking about a lot
recently as I prepare for the new term.
My ‘day job’ is PSHE lead in a specialist
college for young adults aged between 16 and 25 with complex needs – learning,
sensory and physical disabilities as well as autism spectrum conditions. As we are heading into the start of a new
academic year, one of the more exciting challenges is the slew of new
relationships which will inevitably start forming as everyone gets to know each
other. College is a very different
experience to being at school; here we try to make sure that our students know
we experience them as adults and treat them as such too, including offering
support for the romantic and intimate relationships which often end up forming.
As the PSHE lead, I’m responsible for
coordinating some of that support, as well as developing and delivering a
curriculum around sex and relationships, so I am always trying to think of ways
to make it meaningful. Helpfully, the
FPA’s Sexual Health Week takes place in September which gives me a relevant
focus, and this year the topic is consent – great timing! I say that because as I look around at all
the new friendships and couples, the thing that keeps coming back to me about
consent is how complex it can be. It is
something that everybody has to keep on learning about, for each and every
situation and every person that we end up in a relationship with, for our whole
lives. We are all so different, and
communicate our wishes and desires in so many different ways. It can start to feel a bit overwhelming, but
I feel sure that this is because there’s not enough included in sex and
relationships education around knowing what your own boundaries and
expectations are…and being included in a conversation about raising them.
Do you ever think about your rights (and
responsibilities) around your relationships or sexual life? We all have the same ones – as well as being
able to choose who we want to be in a relationship with, regardless of gender,
faith, background, race etc, everyone also has the same rights to have intimate
lives and the privacy to enjoy them, the right to choose and to say yes as well
as no, and to have access to the information, services and support to make our
relationships enjoyable, nurturing, happy and safe. Everyone has the same right to express their
gender identity and their sexuality, and to be safe and supported in doing so. I don’t think this is talked about openly and
positively enough in sex and relationships education anywhere really, but from
bitter experience out in the mainstream I feel sure that it’s often left off
the agenda altogether for people who have disabilities.
With that in mind, I am going to try and focus
on raising expectations amongst my students – not that they will definitely
find the loves of their lives here at college (and certainly not in their first
week!), but that they will be supported in a respectful and equal way to
express their sexuality and gender – and that this should continue in their
lives after college too. Within their
relationships, I want to help them find their boundaries, supporting them to
find their ‘yes’ as well as their ‘no’, and to expect respect, care, kindness
and pleasure in their new relationships (as well as giving that out
themselves). When sex and intimacy are
taught about as something dangerous or risky (or not really talked about at
all!), it makes it very difficult to know when something isn’t right. If that’s flipped on its head and everyone
has the opportunity to be part of learning that relationships can (and should)
be brilliant, fulfilling, happy, awkward, challenging, joyful, rewarding,
intimate, sexy, that’s a much better way of building confidence and making sure
that the expectation of being included is there.
Having an expectation of kindness and respect
in relationships helps to open up the conversation for when things are not as
they should be, without shame or awkwardness, but it can be challenging if it’s
not something that’s been talked about properly before. We need to change that by being open and positive
and making everyone’s voices heard, and ensuring that educators, support staff,
advocates and allies join in and shout about sex and relationships positively,
too.
