Maire Morrissey is project manager of Squashy Couch, Waterford city, a cafe which also dispenses health information and advice for adolescents.
I manage Squashy Couch, an adolescent health and information project based at a youth cafe on Parnell Street, Waterford city.
Squashy Couch is a collaboration between the South Eastern Health Board and the Crisis Pregnancy Agency. It's a youth cafe with a difference. Aside from providing teens with a place to hang out and socialise over a coffee, juice or sandwich, the cafe offers teenagers access to health services.
Research shows that young people have difficulty accessing health services. This is primarily because health services are not specifically targeted at them. Often they feel that health services are for older people or for families.
We try to provide health services in an adolescent-friendly environment through the youth cafe. Our opening hours, after school and Friday and Saturday evenings, are teen-friendly and we have a relaxed and friendly atmosphere in the cafe.
The cafe offers advice and programmes on drugs, alcohol, sexual education, mental health and exam stress.
Any health information provided at the cafe is tailored for teenagers. We bring information from the health services and repackage it with this audience in mind.
For example, when dealing with the issue of alcohol, although we state that underage drinking is illegal, we recognise that young people drink. If they are going to do it anyway, we want to encourage them to do it in a safe way and advise teens not to binge drink, not to drink on their own and to always make sure to rehydrate.
Opened in March 2004, Squashy Couch now opens its doors to 200 teenagers a week. The cafe is aimed at 14- to 19-year-olds and the vast majority of clients at the cafe are aged between 15 and 17.
A mental health programme designed by teenagers for teenagers has just been completed in Squashy Couch and work on a drugs awareness programme is under way.
Ante and post natal clinics to support teenage parents, in conjunction with Waterford Regional Hospital, are run at the cafe. A dietician also works with the cafe.
We also run 25-30 sexual health programmes a year in schools, residential centres and other youth service facilities.
We make sure that our programmes are not just lectures, we introduce games and quizzes, such as condom island and the embarrassment game, to present the information in interesting and fun ways.
We want to promote positive and healthy choices. Young people need information on how and why contraception works and need to learn about their bodies.
Adolescents have a lot of misconceptions about sexual health and there are still lots of myths around pregnancy. We tell teens that you don't just get pregnant, you don't just have sex, you make choices.
Working with the Health Service Executive (HSE) we have also just completed an adolescent sexual health policy document and guidelines for HSE staff.
Before this I worked as a social worker with a special interest in adolescents. I always find working with adolescents very rewarding. They are so dynamic and full of life. They are very open and challenge you to think outside the box.