Sexual health & sexual education needs assessment young people in care,Republic of Ireland

Tender description

The HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme and HSE Children and Families Social Services Care Group wishes to commission a research study, the title of which is: ‘Sexual health and sexual education needs assessment for young people in care in the Republic of Ireland’.The sponsors require the successful initiation, management and completion of a research study that aims to:1. Reliably describe the sexual education and sexual health needs of young people in care.2. Describe the degree to which these needs are currently being met by systems (e.g. education, health), services and significant others.3. Analyse and describe protective and risk behaviours among this group and factors associated with the same, from the psychological to the relational, situational, familial, community and social levels.4. Assess attitudes, knowledge and risk-perception levels among children in care in relation to ‘crisis’ pregnancy, STIs and awareness of services and supports.5. Estimate the teenage pregnancy rate among young people in care. This will involve working with Children & Families staff to explore methods of data collection.6. Compare and contrast findings from published qualitative Irish research on young people in general, including early schools leavers, and this cohort of young people; provide evidence of the degree to which issues generated by young people in care are similar and/or dissimilar to those issues raised by their peers.7. Analyse results and triangulate findings across different research groups (young people, parents, carers) so as to provide meaningful insights that can be translated into practice and policy recommendations.The objective of this research is to present a thorough, reliable, objective, evidence-base, which the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme and Children & Families Social Services Care Group can use to promote evidence-informed practice and policy development. Specifically: needs-led interventions for young people in care, integrated sexual health and educa