Sexual health and marginalisation

Author: Dr Jane Meyrick, Associate Professor in Health Psychology

Through my research, I work closely with minoritised communities on sexual health and marginalisation through sexual violence. My recent British Medical Association (BMA) award-winning work has focused on young survivors of sexual violence.

Collaborating with local partners, The Green House and the Bridge Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC), through Bristol Health Partners Sexual Health Improvement Health Integration Team (SHIP HIT), we set out to improve sexual health services for survivors of child sexual abuse. We wanted to put survivors themselves in charge of that process.

"The work I do is applied real-world change, in sexual health and sexual violence. We work with – and for – groups whose voices are seldom heard."

Dr Jane Meyrick, Associate Professor in Health Psychology

Dr Jane Meyrick Associate Professor in Health Psychology

Their voice, their path

We supported young survivors to redesign the way that their treatment worked. We paid attention to power dynamics to ensure real co-production. We produced a new patient pathway, guided by a kind of passport or map, to help children, young people and their carers find their way through the service and their treatment journey.

The map showed them all their options and put them in charge of decisions about where they could go and what it was like. We used bite-sized videos to show them what they could expect: what the sexual health clinic looked like, who they'd be meeting, what the room looked like and how the process worked. For all of us involved, it was – always is – about finding the options they prefer and what’s going to work for these young survivors.

More power to the individual

Throughout the design process, we used safe, trauma-informed art-based methods to uncover what survivors needed from a service. The young survivors designed different characters and imagined what each would need. At the end, we also asked them to tell us how to evaluate the work: if it was for them, what did they think success looked like?

For me, it's about giving power to these unheard voices, and, in the case of trauma survivors, the process needs to be restorative, giving them back their voice and options. And I guess that's the thread in my work. I'm passionate about listening to people to find out what they need, not what we assume or think they need. That's so important.

This is true across a range of groups I work with; there's never one answer. I have other research students working with minoritised groups, including Black men in London telling us what they need from sexual health services, sexual violence survivors telling us what stops them using healthcare, and male sex workers telling us what support they need. We're looking for funding to build a digital community around their sexual needs. The latest project I'm working on is to help ensure refugees and asylum seekers are better served by sexual health and gender-based violence services.

Trusted to make a difference

I love what I do. I really love listening to people's stories – and helping to tell them and share them. It’s an honour in many ways. But there's real responsibility too. I work with groups that have often suffered trauma. And so it's incredibly important that these survivors can see that their stories are making real-world change. I recently handed over £2,000 in BMA prize money to the young survivors at Greenhouse who co-produced the patient pathway, and they'll decide how to spend it.

Because that's what it’s all about. What we do has to make a change. It has to result in improvements. So yes, I tell my students that we're here to change the world. Not just to find out about it, but to make it better.