Sex ed shortfall
dropped two of its main programmes, Sex ’ n’ Respect Parties and Sex ’n’ Respect Alternative Education, because it simply did not have enough money to offer them to schools.
‘‘Realistically we need at least another $500,000 if we were to substantially reach schools in Auckand,’’ Dr McGregor says.
Mt Roskill Grammar School has offered Rape Prevention Education sessions for about 10 years.
Head of guidance Margaret Hoogendoorn says the programmes are a real asset to the student body.
‘‘I notice now when I discuss romantic relationships with students and I name the consent issue they have an understanding of what consent means, because it is so fully explained in the BodySafe programme,’’ she says.
‘‘What I really like about it is that the finger is not just pointed at the boys. It is for boys and girls both.’’
Ms Hoogendoorn would like to see the service get more funding so that it can continue to offer all its courses.
‘‘The quality of these programmes is really high and we feel really privileged to have them in our school,’’ she says.
Historically a large chunk of the cost has been training facilitators, who up until now have been employed on a part-time basis.
Training a facilitator takes three to six months.
‘‘Last year we hired and trained 17 facilitators and 11 of them went and got fulltime jobs, so we haven’t been able to retain our specialist staff,’’ Dr McGregor says.
‘‘So this year we are moving to a full-time model with the funding we get from the Ministry of Health, so we will only have a few educators but we will be able to retain them.’’
The long-term goal of Rape Prevention Education is to expand its programmes to more schools as well as provide information to parents.
‘‘The students often say to us they don’t get this information from anywhere else, and every school that we go into the students ask for more,’’ she says.