Small Grants and Community Engagement for Sexual Health

The Sexual and Reproductive health (SRH) Health Needs Assessment (HNA) undertaken in 2023 identified population groups where locally there are either known inequalities in SRH outcomes or a lack of local insight about needs. These include people with a learning disability, children and young people, refugees, and asylum seekers, those from minority ethnic groups in particular people of Black / Black British, Asian / Asian British, and ‘Other’ ethnicity and Gay & Bi-sexual Men who have Sex with Men (GBMSM).

During the MPox outbreak there were many areas in England identified as no longer having an outreach offer to population groups at higher risk of STIs (Sexually Transmitted Infections), mainly GBMSM. The Berkshire East Sexual Health Needs Assessment process identified that there is inadequate local insight to ensure a quality sexual health service offer to higher risk GBMSM as well as higher risk heterosexual men and women who are at risk of STIs and HIV and have lower PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) uptake than expected.

National best practice guidance recommends that community engagement forms part of local approaches for groups experiencing or at risk of poorer SRH. Currently in Berkshire East there is limited outreach for SRH. The specialist SRH service provider, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BHFT), offer outreach in Bracknell Forest in line with the service specification requirements. This is focused on specific groups of women at higher risk of poor reproductive health outcomes. BHFT have also recently been successful in gaining research funding to support some engagement work with refugee and asylum seeker communities. Slough and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead also have some outreach support provided through Thames Valley Positive Support, but the focus is on people living with HIV rather than specifically to engage people who do not have HIV diagnosis but are at higher risk.

This service specification aims to use VCSE experience in community engagement and working with priority groups identified in the HNA where there is currently insufficient engagement / dialogue with communities to shape how existing resources could be better used to support access to and for these groups. These include, but are not limited to, GBMSM, people with a learning disability and people of Black / Black British, Asian / Asian British, and ‘Other’ ethnicity (see section 2 below).

An options appraisal (see Appendix A) determined that work should be divided into two workstreams to work symbiotically: 1. To commission a provider to lead and coordinate outreach work including use of qualitative methods, to better inform as to needs and what the barriers are; and 2. a small grant programme to be used as seed money for some micro grass roots community groups to gain direct insights and support outreach into those groups which include ‘protected characteristics’ and are within ‘inclusion health’ groups that are not usually engaged, but which need to be supported for i.e., PrEP and wider access to sexual health services.

Aim: This two-part programme is to identify the sexual health service needs of higher risk populations in Berkshire East through administering a small grants programme and completion of a community engagement process.