Finding the teenage years difficult?
AS A RESEARCH PSYCHOLOGIST and longstanding weekly columnist for The Times, I’ve always known how hard it is for young people to get safe, sensible, age-appropriate advice about sex and relationships. Even now that the government has finally agreed to make sex education mandatory, progress is glacially slow and, let’s face it, how easy is it ever going to be for a teenager to share intimate problems with the person who marks their history essay? Sex is private and personal, so classroombased sex education is always going to be a compromise. However, 96% of teenagers now own a smartphone, so I figured the best way to provide young people with the information they needed about sexual health and safety would be to bypass the constraints of the education system altogether and get it to them directly via their mobiles.
IDENTIFYING THE ISSUES