Ms Maeve O'Brien:

The sexual health and crisis pregnancy programme in the HSE works in the area of education and information. We worked with the NCCA on the recent review of RSE in post-primary schools and the review is currently with the council of the NCCA, which will address the school-space setting. Aside from that, we work with youth work settings and provide information to parents to support them in talking to their children about relationships, sexuality and growing up. We carried out a comprehensive qualitative study with parents in 2016 examining the barriers they experience and their concerns about talking to younger children aged between four and nine. On that basis, we developed a resource for parents to support them in the area.

We are also redeveloping our information for young people on a website. We have a website called b4udecide.ie, which was developed in 2007 to target 14 to 17 year olds, but it is outdated following recent changes. We are currently reworking the information with a view to relaunching it next year.