Exploring the views and experiences of young people from BAME backgrounds around local sexual health services

We found that barriers to accessing sexual health services included:

• Language barriers
• Inadequate services’ promotion and advertising
• Lack of family support
• Issues with privacy and confidentiality
• Peer influence
• Cultural and religious barriers
• But that participants showed a good knowledge of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)

Our main recommendations were:
1. Improve sexual health services’ promotion, information and engagement using social media and ensure that promotional materials represent young people from BAME backgrounds. In addition, prompts and reminders around regular sexual health checks are needed.

2. Deliver targeted training for parents and carers to equip them with the knowledge and skills to best support their young peoples’ sexual health choices.

3. Promotional material should provide information about services’ confidentiality and privacy to reduce fear and stigma of access.

4. Continue to ensure a diverse workforce in sexual health clinics.

5. Increase the provision of bilingual staff and foreign language interpreting services