Ms Sarah Haslam:

I thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to present on behalf of Foróige on our work in the area of relationships and sexuality education. Non-formal education provided by youth work organisations is distinct from formal education but is complementary to it. We believe youth work in general, especially Foróige, can offer the education system decades of expertise in enabling and equipping young people to develop the skills, confidence and knowledge to develop healthy relationships. It can also offer a comprehensive evidence based relationships and sexuality programme, namely, Foróige’s REAL U programme, which could be delivered in schools through an existing and ever growing network of skilled and trained facilitators.

The multitude of strategies, policies and initiatives in recent decades has resulted in a sense of confusion, with Government, schools and many community and voluntary organisations unsure of the best way to meet the needs of our young people to best support them to develop health and positive relationships in their lives. This lack of clarity, combined with our extensive experience in non-formal education and feedback from young people about their dissatisfaction with sex education in schools, were the reasons we identified the need to develop this comprehensive programme.

The initial design of the REAL U programme was conducted by Foróige’s best practice unit in 2012. The curriculum design process started with an extensive review of national policy and strategy, and of best practice and what works nationally and internationally. Foróige liaised with the expertise of organisations such as the HSE crisis pregnancy programme, the Rape Crisis Network Ireland, BeLonG To and the Marie Keating Foundation to ensure the programme meets the wide-ranging needs of young people, and to ensure it provides a comprehensive and holistic approach to RSE.

The REAL U programme is more than just a sex education programme. It is a personal development programme that equips young people with the skills, knowledge and confidence to develop healthy relationships, make responsible decisions on their sexual health and ultimately delay the onset of early sexual activity. The programme is holistic in its approach to RSE and includes modules on gender and sexuality; emotional well-being; understanding boundaries; contraception and sexually transmitted infections, including a practical condom demonstration on correct use; sexual violence and the law; deciphering media messages; and understanding pornography.

In 2014, the programme underwent an extensive evaluation by the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, National University of Ireland, Galway. Among the key findings from the evaluation were that the programme was effective in engaging young people, responding to their needs and impacting on their knowledge and attitudes in the area of RSE. Young people said they would recommend this programme to other young people because they felt the programme was relevant, insightful and they felt better informed and more aware of the consequences of their actions. The research also identified statistically significant effects in young people's attitude to members of the LGBTI+ community, and 100% of those who trained in facilitating the programme said it was effective in meeting its outcomes.

With the support of the HSE crisis pregnancy programme, to date Foróige has trained more than 1,100 professionals from organisations and disciplines, including youth organisations, the HSE, ISPCC, the school completion programme, Tusla, residential care centres, family resource centres and those who work with young people and adults with intellectual disabilities. These trained facilitators of the REAL U programme run the programme with young people and service users nationwide and evaluations of the facilitator training and the programme have been consistently overwhelmingly positive. Foróige’s REAL U programme has been called the gold standard in RSE in Ireland. As such, we currently cannot meet demand for the REAL U facilitator training and the waiting list stands at more than 200.

We believe the REAL U programme meets the needs of modern Irish young people. It has been extensively and rigorously tested, evaluated and proven to do so. If we wait for a new programme to be written and teachers to be recruited and trained, we will fail a large number of young people by further delaying their needs being met. In recent months, we received a tenfold increase in the number of school teachers contacting us about the programme. We currently cannot meet this need. The REAL U programme offers everything the Government announced it wishes to have as part of the reform of the RSE curriculum. The programme is ready to go and ready to be rolled out in schools. While it has been written for young people rather than schools, we are willing to meet the Department of Education and Skills to discuss how the programme can be adapted for the school context. We recommend that the Government invest in large-scale training of youth services and community organisations to deliver the REAL U programme in all schools while the schools ready themselves to deliver it.

Foróige's REAL U programme is the gold standard in RSE. Young people, now and in future, deserve to have access to the programme. We are ready and willing to work together to make that a reality.