Beyond Barbie

Star rating: 4/5.

Community-based sex and relationships education with girls and young women: a worker’s compendium, Angie Brown-Simpson, fpa, £19.99; contact fpa direct 01685 846678.   

This manual is for youth workers and professionals and looks to promote understanding of how to work with young women on sexual health and relationships issues, writes Chantelle Gordon.

There are some good sections such as “Dear Barbie”, which looks at some of the questions young women ask and some of the things they worry about.

There are helpful tips and hints on how to deal with situations and approach subjects. I think it would be a particularly useful guide for male youth workers as it gives plenty of insight into what young women think about. It has lists of organisations young people can be referred to and the “Forms and Tools” section is a good starting place from which you can develop your own guidelines and recording sheets.

There is also a sister guide for working with African Caribbean young women.

Although at times it tends to be a bit repetitive, it definitely gets a thumbs-up from me.

Chantelle Gordon is a teenage pregnancy prevention worker.