28 January 2009

Sexual health charity fpa wants women and health professionals to start Finding the Perfect Partner and adopt a more consumer approach to preventing pregnancy. Contraception, says fpa, should be seen as a lifestyle choice as well as a medical one and the Finding the Perfect Partner (choose what you use) campaign is created to do this.

To integrate front line health professionals into the heart of the campaign, for the first time parcels filled with new posters, sexual health leaflets and guidance sheets are being dropped into every General Practice in the UK. Created in partnership with the ethical agency (tea) three colourful and eye catching campaign posters (above) make a powerful statement encouraging women to shop around for their contraception as they would for shoes, handbags or make up.

To empower contraceptive choice directly to women, fpa‘s website is hosting a variety of virtual activity for the week. Users can browse through compact pages of information, advice, easy downloads, creative display materials and do quizzes on fpa’s Facebook group.

A survey of a 1,000 women released to the national media on 9 February provides the straight news angle. Parliamentary and lobbying strands are being taken care of by two networking events at the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament. Westminster MPs will also receive campaign posters and materials.

Press and Campaigns Manager fpa Rebecca Findlay said:

“’Choice’ is one of those words used for everything, but this can turn into a bit of an opaque description. So it was clear from the start that a campaign on contraceptive choice had to be something very tangible, relevant and practical. The lifestyle angle quickly became a very easy vehicle to get our message across to women and health professionals alike. We backed this up with more detailed online guidance, advice and information.

“We’ve secured extra funding this year from Bayer Schering Pharma which meant we could get the campaign packs out to a massive number of health professionals, which we are very grateful for,” she concluded.

Stuart Fermor and Chris Bishop, Creative Partners of the ethical agency (tea) said:

“It may sound rather obvious, but to make an informed choice about something, you have to know what there is to choose from. Most of us struggle to name more than a couple of forms of contraception. So we thought, a quick way to tell women that there’s a lot more on offer, would be to put contraceptive choice up there with life’s other true essentials: shoes, bags and make-up. It allows women to see - perhaps for the first time - that they have a real choice and encourages them to exercise it in a way as individual and appropriate to them as, well… buying a pair of shoes that fit them and nobody else.”

-ENDS-

Online links for the week:

Campaign pages: www.fpa.org.uk

Women’s pages: www.fpa.org.uk/News/Campaigns/Findingtheperfectpartner/Helpforwomen

Health profs: www.fpa.org.uk/News/Campaigns/Findingtheperfectpartner/Howprofessionalscangetinvolved

Posters: www.fpa.org.uk/News/Campaigns/Findingtheperfectpartner/Campaignposters

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=105437695622

Jpegs of the posters are available from fpa’s Press Office.

For further information please contact fpa’s press office on 020 7608 5265/5264

Mobile 07958 921060.

fpa (Family Planning Association) is the only registered charity working to improve the sexual health and reproductive rights of all people throughout the UK.

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