I am involved in organising events on health in the school such as the ‘Carousel Day’ when we invited different agencies to put up health information stands about subjects such as stopping smoking, sexual health, healthy eating, and drug awareness. We also had the police come into school to run a session on personal safety and self-defence. Each class from Years 10 and 11 then visited the ‘Carousel’ for one lesson period.
I am part of a rota of YHCs and we work in pairs to offer drop-in sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays at morning break-time. Our role is to help our peers get the information or get the services they need, eg by handing out leaflets or helping people register for ‘C’ cards (a scheme enabling young people to get access to condoms). It’s not our job to give direct health advice and we have regular support meetings and know that we can talk to our school-based facilitator if we have concerns about someone at risk. Anything we are told is confidential.
We work with our school nurse and know the local agencies who support young people so that we can put them in touch with the right person to help them.
We also do assemblies to other year groups, for example when we launched the YHC scheme, and some of us will be presenting what we do to our school governors. We are also planning a healthy eating session for one of our local primary schools.