We have had some fantastic ideas for second life, starting as a house in which each room focussed on a different aspect from the government initiative, ie: sexual health, healthy eating, environment etc. but then we were told to focus on one aspect as this would be too much and that quality is better than quantity!
we then decided to stick with general health and create a virtual doctors surgery that people can visit and obtain information and guidance on a range of health issues, although my gut feeling was always that it would be more appropriate for teens who may have sensitive issues that they are nervous about discussing with a GP face to face.
Our next move was to do some market research, this resulted in devising questionaires that we then planned to take to the leeds student health practice down the road in order to question patients to find out if they would use a 2nd life doctors and why, and also to get their thoughts on the service and why it might be useful!
However after asking the receptionist for permission we were told that we couldn't conduct the survey there, so we had to come back to college and question the students here, we also made sure to question staff so as to get a more balanced result.
After reading through the answers together we came to the conclusion that the service would definitely be more appropriate for sexual health issues concerning younger users who may find it difficult to express their concerns with a person face to face.
The contraceptive pill is now available for girls aged 11 up WITHOUT their parents consent, this is to try and combat the rising number of teenage pregnancies in the UK, however it is also rather alarming in that children as young as 11 are having SEX! we feel that at such a young age they are very likely to be misinformed, what parent is going to talk to their 9,10 or 11 year old about sex? sex education in schools is currently done in stages, between the ages of 11-14 pupils are taught about the menstrual cycle and how it relates to human reproduction, physical and emotional changes brought on by puberty, how the fusion of a male and female cell causes fertilization and how a foetus develops in the uterus, they are not taught about sexual intercourse, and more importantly STDs until they are 14-16 and even then the focus is more on hormones and fertility with STDs sessions being limited to one day or one week workshops!
so as you can see information is limited and very mediocre at that.
going to a sexual health clinic for information will most certainly be very daunting for a young teen/child who has symptoms for an STD, just think this could be any number of things which I won't go into but I imagine they would be extremely frightening for anyone, especially when doubled with the mentality of an 11 or 12 year old, that could be a very life-changing and scarey prospect, not to mention the emotional distress that comes with first time sex.
Our virtual clinic, (which we are now thinking of making into a "ride on" experience) will be light-hearted and informative, we don't want to scare clients to death but they need to know the facts, what to look out for, symptoms, information on how "Exactly" STDs are transmitted, this may seem obvious but of course someone as young as 11 may not know this, and of course we all know how "kidz" like to make up stories!
here are some posters I designed for the surgery but will probably not be used now that we are focussing on STDS!
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