Dear Gordon Brown
Dear Gordon Brown – a message, a request, a plea …
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”. We hear this call to arms on a daily basis. We respond with creating something – something we feel will help our country, its people – and possibly an unwanted national surplus. Something to bring figures down.
Working within the statutory sector reminds me constantly how easy it is to fall from grace. However, working on the front line in today’s Britain also reminds me of how far we have to go. As a professional Youth Worker, currently employed by a Youth Offending Service and working with high risk-takers – young people whose comprehension of issues is hampered by their literacy skills, lack of social understanding and a sexualised media driven youth culture, it is difficult to convey a message, that they should take responsibility for themselves – or others.
Our aim is to provide a realistic response to concerns around rising rates of STIs and a stagnant teenage pregnancy strategy – a response that is credible to the populations and cultural groups it is aimed at. Call this a collective personal quest. To these ends we have produced The Red Knob fanzine, and a number of supporting resources and training programmes. Believe it or not, we didn’t set out on our quest as a money-making exercise – we wanted to challenge a moribund sexual health status quo, to consider other ways of working with young people. We have personally funded this project. The resources that are provided by the NHS, Brook, fpa, and other statutory and government accredited organisations and charities has had little impact on the sexual health of those I work with – i.e. the responses your government funds do not work with the most at risk groups.
We live in a world of fear. You yourself help perpetuate this – your mandarins create endless spin on terrorism, immigration, benefit cheats, gun and knife crime, and gang culture. Real concerns – possibly – but so is the issue of STIs/ teenage pregnancy. It’s not going to go away and it’s costing you and us the tax payer. It causes misery in terms of the health and social consequences. You’re aware of all this. Some of the young people I work with can’t read, or cannot engage with publications and resources, or people that speak in a language and terminology culturally remote from their lives – therefore statutory-speak pamphlets are useless, ‘nice’ cartoons aren’t real, and so many young men won’t take notice of the cosy, earnest workers employed to deliver sexual health … many of the young men I work with are people who live chaotic lifestyles, people to whom social engineering approaches have no currency in their lives. Gender deconstruction? These are some of the problems – we 
can list others.
We value research-based realistic approaches; current approaches may work with the mainstream – but not the ‘hard-to-reach’ on our sink estates. The Red Knob uses a social marketing ‘shock and show’, dare we say it, fear appeals approach (as developed and advocated by your own people at the Central Office of Information’s Strategic Consultancy) combined with real humour and irony of the sort young men actually use in order to convey a message – a message which may save taxpayers and the government money. Prevention is cheaper than the cure – do you pay for the expensive ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – or the very stout fence at the top? We have the publications, the resources, the training ready and waiting. We need government support to put it out there. (Or for that matter funding from anyone else out there, apart from our benevolent government, who may be interested in an equitable, equal opportunities approach to sexual health…)
If you have the time maybe we could meet to discuss this further – depending of course on our work diaries.
Regards
The Red Knob
CC.
Your current (Health Minister)
www.theredknob.co.uk
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