Adolescents are not older children and they are not young adults. A sudden dramatic change hits teenagers. Judy McRae, another member of the forum, said many young men had difficulty accessing family planning clinics that are seen as female areas and female-dominated. She called for more efforts to be made to bring men into adolescent health care, such as school nursing. Nurses and health care workers and teachers are still female as are teachers.
Young males lack role models.
She added that some male nurses were reluctant to get involved in adolescent care because of accusations of abuse. More needed to be done to educate people to help make it easier for male nurses to work in this field, she said. Mental health Anne Asprey, another school nurse, said the adolescent health care debate tended to focus only on sex when young people tended to be more worried about family relationships, bullying and mental health issues. This is despite the fact that suicide levels have almost doubled among people aged 12 to 17 in the last 20 years. Another problem is that children are being given treatment without consent, despite the fact that consent is legally required for young people over 16 and required for those under 16 if they are judged competent.