Feature

Just as important as anyone else

An innovative health project aimed at — and run by — young women has opened in Manchester. Sian Long explains what it’s all about

The leaflet advertising the Y-WAIT group begins “We are a group of local girls and young women who think it is often hard to find someone to talk to when you are worried about things. We thought an important thing is to be able to talk to someone in confidence someone who won’t pass what you’ve said on... You can call in and pick up some information, talk to someone or go and see the doctor. Or you can just call in and have a cup of tea at the centre.”

The Y-WAIT Group (Young Women’s Health Advice, Information and Time to Talk), is an innovative project in Manchester which has just opened a ‘young well women’s clinic’, planned and developed by a group of local girls and young women aged between 14 and 26.

The aim of the group is to provide a service for girls and young women which is run by girls and young women and which addresses a wide range of young women’s health concerns — sexual, emotional and mental health. The Y-WAIT drop-in is informal and confidential, provides information, a safe place to talk and explore issues, and the chance to see a woman doctor.

The project links up appropriate service provision — trained volunteers who are young women themselves and a woman doctor who has been interviewed by those volunteers, and a space for young women to explore health issues, find out more about themselves and their bodies and discuss their choices in an informal atmosphere. This makes the service more relevant for an inner city, multi racial area like north Manchester, and is ‘health enhancing’ for the girls and young women involved.

The project is an HIV/AIDS project. Most young women have many worries that are of much more direct concern than HIV/AIDS, and they will only feel able to deal with HIV issues if they are put into a context which is more relevant to them. It is only when young women’s most immediate health concerns are considered that they can move onto the more specific issues of HIV/AIDS.

Effective AIDS education involves showing young women that HIV can affect them, giving them the self confidence to be able to make choices, and seeing what girls ideally want to do, what they are able to do, and what it is out of their control to do, then providing a place for them to act on their decisions. Much AIDS and sex education only considers the ‘mechanics’. One young woman who had become pregnant very young said: ‘There is a huge gap between the practical and emotional stuff and no one talks to you about that. People told me how not to get pregnant but no one had told me what it feels like to be told ‘I love you’ and I never heard that at home’.

The group was not already established. I and another women’s health worker met young women in youth clubs, community groups, the schoolgirl mothers’ group, etc, and explained the project. A group of them decided that they wanted to be involved and that they would need training. During eight months of weekly evening meetings, some Sundays and two residentials we talked about issues such as contraception, pregnancy, abortion, HIV, good and bad things about being girls, racism, sexual abuse and rape, our bodies and bereavement. We used our own experiences. Three girls who had had babies while they were still at school did the training on pregnancy, for example.

We were planning the service as we trained. We thought about what qualities were important in a doctor — being able to talk to young women as equals, not being judgmental, being able to work alongside volunteers as part of a team, working in an informal way. We interviewed a doctor and she works as part of the group.

The drop-in is used by young women for many different reasons — contraception, housing, getting on with parents, sexual abuse, issues around sexuality or alcohol. Girls come in to see the doctor and end up talking about many other things too.

There is no blueprint for the success which we have had (and we are still only just beginning and trying to learn from our own mistakes). However, there are some things which the group feel are essential to our success.

Girls cannot get involved without practical support — creches, safe transport home, checking that we could all make the meetings. We established ground rules which we stuck to and which are the foundation of a high quality service — equality in the group, confidentiality and respecting everyone’s opinion. The group considered all the things that had affected our own health — issues of racism and sexism, what it was like to have learning difficulties, to be thrown out of home and what pressures boys put you under. We thought about equal opportunities such as having an accessible building and not making assumptions about girls’ sexuality.

We took the time to get to know each other and have fun together.

The group is very clear that there are many advantages to the project being run by young women.

’Young women will have clear ideas about what other young women want and need. It’s not always old people who have the right answer’.

’Girls won’t talk to older women in the same way because they’re thinking that they’re like their parents — with younger women you can talk to them as a friend’.

’You can make more general conversation as someone of the same age which you can’t do with someone older. That means you can bring more stuff up’.

’Our doctor commented that the girls coming to see her are more confident after they have talked it through with one of the volunteers. Girls who come like the atmosphere. The Y-WAIT members have gained a lot from the project too.’

’I expected to learn about contraception and how to talk with young girls. I got what I expected and I got more. Before I came to this group I was closed up (about my own health problem) and now feel like I’m just as important as anyone else. Lots of people made decisions for me and now I won’t let them do it. I know where I stand in life’.

’I’ve made more friends. It has made me more able to talk to friends — a lot of people ask you for information. It has also made me more confident with new people. You can’t be shy if someone is talking to you about something personal. That will help me when I go for a job in the future’.

’Y-WAIT is now independent. The health authority money has finished, apart from the doctor’s and family planning nurse’s input. We have a grant of £15,000 a year. We have formed our own management group. However, this has meant that the group now only has a half-time worker, which means she is spending all her time supporting the existing work and not developing new services as we had hoped.

What the group needs now is support to develop on its own. The group can only work as well as its links with other workers who work with young women. That often seems an uphill struggle! Despite these problems we have plans for the future. We want to look at something similar that can be used by young Asian women, who are currently not involved in this group. We are going to train a new lot of volunteers as the original group begins to move on to other things.

The group members are clear that they have achieved something worthwhile — both for themselves and for local girls and young women. The Y-WAIT project shows that asking young women what they need is most important — then giving them a chance to do it!