A UNIVERSITY of Worcester lecturer has been awarded a prestigious international fellowship to undertake research in the Netherlands that could help improve the sexual health of young people in the UK.

Clare Bennett, a registered nurse and senior lecturer within the Institute of Health and Society at the University of Worcester, was awarded one of only 150 travelling fellowships by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

Dr Bennett said: “Young people in the UK endure a significant and disproportionate burden of sexually transmitted infection and unintended pregnancy compared to those in comparable European countries.

"Holland has one of the world’s lowest teenage birth rates, 1.3 per 1,000 15-17 year olds compared to 6.8 in the UK.

"Sexually transmitted infection amongst young people is also low.

"Dutch and UK teenagers are exposed to similar influences through popular culture, yet sexual behaviours differ significantly between the two countries."

"Research suggests that the way parents and children talk about sexual health may, in part, explain this difference, with Dutch families tending to embrace a more open approach to the subject than their UK counterparts."

Dr Bennett will travel to the Netherlands in July to speak to families, teachers, and fellow researchers before returning to the UK to share her findings.

She added the aim of her project was to study the Dutch model of open communication and share her findings to inform the current UK debate about how children should be taught about relationships and sex at school.

She added: "The UK government has recently announced proposals to make "age appropriate" sex and relationship education compulsory in all primary and secondary schools in England from 2019, so the timing of this project is excellent, as the findings can feed directly in to that debate."

Before his death in 1965, Sir Winston Churchill was adamant that he did not wish to have another statue as his memorial, so he approved the setting up of The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

The ethos of the trust remains the same five decades on – for individuals to visit different parts of the world in pursuit of new and better ways of tackling a wide range of social, environmental, medical and scientific issues.

The new approaches and innovative ideas with which they return are shared to benefit their local and regional communities, and, in many cases, the nation.