“Open the door, Jilly, or I’ll use my master key and come in!” shouted Fran, exasperated by Jilly’s failure to respond.

There was a lot of banging and shuffling around, and then slowly the door opened.

“You’re a -----ing pain, Fran, I was fast asleep,” muttered a dishevelled looking Jilly.

“Oh yer, and I suppose you talk like a boy in your sleep as well?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” shouted Jilly.

“Well, for a start, are they your size nine trainers in the corner there?” snapped Fran.

“Come on, Jilly, where is he?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about”

Suddenly the wardrobe door flew open and a tall gangly youth, wearing just his underpants and holding a pair of jeans, jumped out, bent down and picked up his trainers, gave Fran a hefty shove and vanished out of the open window.

Fran fell to the floor with a thump, luckily landing on her bottom.

She quickly jumped up and ran to the window and shouted after the fleeing boy, “That’s assault, you know …. and you’re banned!”

The next day at staff handover Fran recounted the story of Jilly’s exploits and asked despairingly, “What can we do?”

“ Jilly is 16. I suppose turning a blind eye is not an option?” asked Justin.

“I don’t think so, Justin. Do you think we are here just to answer the door?” responded Sarah frostily. “Well, I don’t think we are here to impose our middle-class values on young people”, replied Justin. “The new Regulations are pretty limited in dealing with issues of sexuality directly but we are charged in them with protecting children from abuse, helping to safeguard their health, making sure they are safe and helping them behave a socially responsible way,” Sarah pointed out.

“In other words, we can’t just sit on the fence Justin”, asserted Fran.

“OK, so we try to hold back the tide of human nature”, retorted a beleaguered Justin.

“Can someone tell me how you got a job here?” said an incredulous Claudia.

“OK, folks, let’s cool it. It just shows what an emotive topic sexuality is and why we generally seem to steer clear of talking about it. Apart from anything else, we can get drawn into our views, and sometimes uncertainty, about our own sexual behaviour. But we owe to our young people to be clear-headed on this issue”, advised Sarah.

“No, we are not here to impose our own views or morality on young people but we are here to make sure that they are safe, they are not exploited, they learn something about making trusting and respecting relationships and that they don’t put their health at risk from sexually transmitted diseases.”

“And we know that because of their own family circumstances, and frequently because of their low self-esteem, the young people in our home are often especially vulnerable in the area of relationships,” added Claudia.

“This handover is turning into a seminar. Next, someone will be giving us some essay topics”, quipped Justin.

“You should be taking notes, Justin. It might help you with your NVQ”, suggested Fran.

“Joking aside, I think this short discussion is a useful reminder that Fran was right to intervene in Jilly’s behaviour and that she was not just being a spoil-sport or unduly moralistic”, said Sarah.

At Jilly’s next session with her Keyworker, Claudia, the bedroom incident was raised by Jilly.

“I think its rotten that Bazza has been banned. It just ain’t fair.”

“Why do think that, Jilly?”

“Well, he is my boyfriend, and I am over 16. I agree I should not have hid him in my room after bed time but it didn’t hurt anyone else.”

“You raise a lot of points there, Jilly. Will you listen to me if I try to reply to them?”

“’Cos I will”.

“Bazza has been your boyfriend for a week. Before that there was Gav. Then, if I remember it right, there was Gav’s friend Speedy, and that’s just in the last few weeks.”

“OK, OK, so I am popular”.

“Do you think it’s OK to have sex with every boyfriend of a few days or weeks?”

“Well, they are usually keen”.

“But are you, Jilly? Or do you think it’s just a way that you hope you will get them to really care about and stay with you?”

“Well, partly that I suppose”.

“And it doesn’t work, Jilly. Does it?”

“Not yet, no”.

“Jilly, you deserve a boyfriend who will respect and care about you and not someone who will just use you and move on. Staff are not here to spoil your fun but to help and advise you. You are an intelligent and attractive young woman who will have no trouble finding boyfriends. Just choose carefully and take your time before getting too intimate.”

“What…. are you saying Bazza is rubbish”? shouted an agitated Jilly.

“No, I’m not, because I don’t really know him. What I am saying is, we really do care about you and we think you should be careful”, said Claudia calmly.

“Another thing you have to remember is that casual sex can be dangerous”. “Don’t worry. I’m not stupid enough to become pregnant”. “Oh, so you take precautions, do you?” “Well, not always … but there are other ways,” muttered Jilly. “And what about diseases?”

“Now you are being insulting. I don’t want to hear anymore. The boys I go with are not riffraff, you know”, said Jilly getting to her feet.

“Calm down, Jilly. I’m not trying to insult you. It’s not just riffraff, as you say, that can get sexually transmitted diseases. Anyone can get them”, said Claudia.

Jilly sat down again but still looked uneasy.

“All I’m saying”, continued Claudia, “is that because so many people think sex is so easy, they forget, or sometimes don’t know about things like AIDS and VD, which are serious illnesses and often hard or impossible to properly cure.”

“Of course I’ve heard about them, but they don’t happen much in this country do they? I thought it was mostly in Africa and such places”.

“Look, Jilly, I’m not really the expert on this subject, but how about if I ask Mave Francis, our health visitor, to have a chat with you, next time she comes?”

“I don’t want no more b.... lectures”.

“I promise you she won’t give you lectures, just the facts, and I think she has some leaflets and so on”.

“Lastly, Jilly, you know the rules about visitors. None in your bedroom at any time and
and certainly no one after bedtime in your or anybody else’s room. This is to protect you and all of us, young people and staff.”

“Well, Claudia, I didn’t like some of what you said to me, but thanks for being so direct and treating me like a proper person. I’ll tell Bazza what you said”, added Jilly as she left the room.