Targeted Outreach Service

The Targeted Sexual Health Outreach Service is for vulnerable young people to provide information and support around their sexual health. This Service is across Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset.

The team also provide teacher training for all secondary schools in Dorset (inc. Poole and Bournemouth) to support them to deliver Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) confidently and effectively using their Core Package that they provide schools for free. RSE will become compulsory in September 2020 and it is crucial that schools have trained staff ready to deliver this subject competently.

All Outreach events are coordinated through the team. They provide Health Promotion and STI screening events for those identified as potentially at risk. This includes promotion of all Sexual Health Services and opportunistic screening for Chlamydia as part of the National Screening Programme for 15-24 year olds.

Targeted Outreach Team

The Targeted Outreach Team is commissioned to complete a short piece of targeted work with individual young people aged 13 to 19 years old or up to 25 years if they have a learning disability.  Any young person who either lives or studies in Dorset can access this support.  The aim of the service is to enable young people to access targeted relationship and sex education in the event that the universal Relationship Sex Education curriculum offered by school or youth service has been unable to meet their sexual health needs.  Following acceptance of a referral a young person will be allocated an advisor who will contact the referrer and then the young person, usually within three weeks.  The young person’s needs will be assessed and goals will be agreed.  The ultimate aim of the support is to ensure the young person is aware of the facts and health advice enabling them to make informed decisions about their sexual health even if this is a decision that professionals do not agree with.

The support available includes:

• Supporting a young person to access contraception and STI clinics which they would be unable to access on their own or with support from parents/carers or other professionals
• Supporting their understanding of sexual consent and healthy relationships
• Supporting them to think about their rights and responsibilities, wishes and expectations within a relationship
• Supporting their understanding of how to minimise risk associated with sexual relationships including contraception, STIs, coercion and control
• Inappropriate use of pornography.

We aim to work as part of a multi-professional team or individually. Please note, due to the short duration of the Targeted Outreach Support, young people assessed as high risk of exploitation can only be supported by the outreach team to access contraception and STI clinics. In addition, we are unable to offer counselling or therapy for young people with mental health issues or who have been subjected to sexual violence.

Click here for our latest Targeted Outreach newsletter.

Please do not hesitate to contact the team dhc.sexualhealth.promotion@nhs.net to discuss a young person’s needs prior to referral if you feel they may benefit from Targeted Support but may not fit within the commissioned age range.

For the referral form, please click the button below:

The Targeted Outreach team have made the webinars for teachers and other professionals who work with young people to support them with Relationships and Sex education. The content of the webinars is based around our RSE Core Package resources.