Young Peoples Sexual Health

Key discussions and valuable contributions on different aspects of sexual and reproductive health among young people are brought together here in one single volume.

Valuable contributions on different aspects of sexual and reproductive health among young people are presented in this book, with a focus on developing country contexts. Key discussions on issues relating to young people and their sexual activities are brought together in one volume, exploring how these issues are affected by the wider contexts in which they live. The interdisciplinary team of contributors examine the practical and ideological barriers that inhibit progress in the development of educational and service level improvement of young people’s sexual health as well as presenting examples of efforts made to overcome such difficulties. Promoting Young People's Sexual Health looks to the future, proposing ways forward in terms of policy and legislative changes necessary for long term improvements in young people’s sexual health.

Promoting Youth Sexual Health, written for preventionists and interventionists who work with children and adolescents across home, school, or community settings, offers guidance on how to promote sexual health among youth. The reader is first introduced to the state of the field, including sexual behaviors in which youth engage, sexual risk and protective factors, standards and professional guidelines for promoting sexual health of youth, developmental and cultural considerations, and considerations in supporting LGBTQ youth. Evidence-based strategies to support child and adolescent sexual health in homes, schools, and communities are then presented. The book concludes with a proposed model for integrating supports across settings to comprehensively promote youth sexual health.

Distributing Condoms and Hope is a feminist ethnographic account of how youth sexual health programs in the racially and economically stratified city of “Millerston” reproduce harm in the marginalized communities they are meant to serve. Chris A. Barcelos makes space for the stories of young mothers, who often recognize the narrow ways that public health professionals respond to pregnancies. Barcelos's findings show that teachers, social workers, and nurses ignore systemic issues of race, class, and gender and instead advocate for individual-level solutions such as distributing condoms and promoting "hope." Through a lens of reproductive justice, Distributing Condoms and Hope imagines a different approach to serving marginalized youth—a support system that neither uses their lives as a basis for disciplinary public policies nor romanticizes their struggles.

This book explores the interdependence of health and education, and how optimising this important relationship provides the foundation for achieving improved life outcomes from birth into adulthood. Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, it draws on bio-medical, epidemiological, educational, psychological and economic evidence to demonstrate the benefits of the reflexive, positive associations between good health and educational attainment over the life course. In this, it offers readers insights into the complex nature of the nexus between health and education and how this relationship influences development. Health and Education Interdependence: Thriving from Birth to Adulthood is essential reading for education and health researchers and policymakers, teachers and public health and health promotion practitioners, as well as students studying in these fields.

Drawing on national and international policy analyses, on academic research and on a range of practical approaches to working with different groups, this work presents an holistic view of young people's sexuality and sexual health.

Distributing Condoms and Hope is a feminist ethnographic account of how youth sexual health programs in the racially and economically stratified city of “Millerston” reproduce harm in the marginalized communities they are meant to serve. Chris A. Barcelos makes space for the stories of young mothers, who often recognize the narrow ways that public health professionals respond to pregnancies. Barcelos's findings show that teachers, social workers, and nurses ignore systemic issues of race, class, and gender and instead advocate for individual-level solutions such as distributing condoms and promoting "hope." Through a lens of reproductive justice, Distributing Condoms and Hope imagines a different approach to serving marginalized youth—a support system that neither uses their lives as a basis for disciplinary public policies nor romanticizes their struggles.

The provision of sexual health services to young people is a key issue - particularly given concern over young people's sexual health. But what kinds of services do young people want? And what has been shown to work?