Period Poverty

[SmartiesHaveTheAnswer]

Has anyone tackled this issue in their schools? I work in a city school in particularly deprived area and this must be an issue for certain girls that we have. I want to know if anyone has been able to do something positive to get sanitary products for their girl pupil. All help and advice appreciated.

Could you approach a local Boots and ask them to sponsor/donate? Asda are meant to be very helpful with donations.

Write to them and ask.

Didn't come from a deprived area myself, but we had a teacher at our (admittedly small) school who would leave a selection of sanitary products, wet wipes and multi-pack supermarket underwear in pretty baskets in the school toilets, for girls who'd been caught out.
If anyone had been suffering period poverty, they could have emptied the basket in the cubicle without anyone knowing I guess, I doubt anyone would have cared.

Potentially too expensive on a larger scale, though reassuringly girls did seem to use them as needed and weren't just wasting them all and sticking them to the ceiling or something equally ridiculous.

I would say, that as so many young girls are shy around the subject, blanket provision rather than trying to target those who may need it, is likely to be the best approach.

As someone in marketing (the devils profession, I know...), I would contact all the big sanpro brands, plus independent companies like Pink Box and see if they would give you a sizeable discount on a bigger order. I'd even try those with less conventional products like mooncup and that company that does the fancy absorbant pants.

Or ask whether they'd be willing to sponsor your school in exchange for some good publicity, i.e. offer to contact the local press/daily fail and tell them about your new "partnership".
Companies can be incredibly generous if you know how to ask!

If you manage to negotiate a good discount, try approaching local "women's" groups to find funding. Would the local WI/guides/uni feminist society etc be willing to do a fundraiser? Or the PTA? They do like local charities where 100% of monies raised are buying useful products rather than paying an executives wage!

Just make sure if you provide tampons to include/display clearly (framed on a cubicle wall?) the safety leaflets - its probably more practical to just offer pads so the school doesn't end up being sued for its well meaning endeavours by a child that's developed TSS.

Sorry, I know teachers have no time as it is, and woefully inadequate wages, so my suggestions might be asking a bit much of you time wise.

PM me if you want, I will happily spend some time on this. I could put together a bit of an "action plan" and draft some letters/proposals for companies for you as this months good deed

As PP suggests, ASDA is very responsive with donations. However, IME they are generous for "one-off" donations - when you require a constant stream! But yes, I'd also contact all the supermarkets and see if I could get a bit of a stockpile of donations together.

Universities also good for donations and willing student volunteers/fundraisers. The bigger universities have insane amounts of money set aside for various schemes and are often willing to help. In fact, my uni provided free sanpro/condoms etc in the toilets for tens of thousands of students, so one local to you might be able to throw a few your way!

No although following as interested.

We stock up on sanitary products as part of our 'first aid' budget, and give them out ad lib from our pastoral office.

Could easily be funded via pupil premium funding.

Thank you everyone - loads of great advice.

tender I'm actually very grateful for the offer and would like to take you up on it.

To explain a bit more, I'm a TA and my Mary Poppins sized bag is already stuffed with pens and stationary items. I already have a steady supply of pads on me at all times and girls will come and find me for emergency pads (Home Bargains I Love you) but I suppose I want to help more.

I like the thought of baskets of supplies but we have a number of girls and boys hell-bent on destroying things and being generally foul in the toilets. I think a basket of items would be used to create more damage/chaos

Neolara what's pupil premium?

@tendergreenbean... How lovely! Will you now have your membership of evil marketing body removed for being so kind?

Pupil premium is the funding for students from low income homes. Tight budgets mean this is quite squeezed. Hard to ensure only PP kids get it, and not fair to only give to pp.

I have some time free I can dedicate to it on Saturday afternoon, so if you PM me before then with any extra info I will get to work on some letters.

I can research some local groups who may be helpful if you can give me an idea of what locality to look in, or can write some general letters for you to edit with details later if you'd rather not share any details.

I'll have a think of an alternative to baskets - there must be some way pupils could access them without necessarily having to go through the potential embarrassment of asking (which may be putting a couple of the more shy girls off). Maybe a box on the reception desk? So no having to ask, but it's supervised?

Also thought we could see if some local stores will have a donation box in their foyer, a bit like the food bank/pet food ones.

I know none of these suggestions address the problem as a whole, and wouldn't work if every single school did them, but I'd jump in first and get some donations!

Pupil premium also looking like a potential funding source, but I know nothing about it. Sounds like PPs have more knowledge in this area!

Have you heard of the Red Box charity? They put boxes of pads, tampons etc in school offices for girls to go and get when they need them. Hang on...

here

@shakeyourcaboose muhahaha once I'm done trying to persuade marketing departments that it'll create brand loyalty in order get them to part with their precious pads, I'll get straight back to using pretty colours and pictures of aspirationally well behaved children to persuade you all to spend your hard earned money on things you don't need whilst gleefully rubbing my palms together .

In all seriousness, I know dressing up tat as being wonderful is a pretty unworthy persuit. I, thankfully, do bits and bobs for small independent businesses, which snowballed from helping a few friends out. I just like making things look pretty .
Could never work on a big team pushing fast food to children or anything like that, I hope that absolves me!

Oh tender by day, evil marketeer working for evil conglomerate selling e numbers to tickle kiddies, but secretly a big softy!

Pupil premium funding is money given to the school to support children from low income families. In secondary schools it is £935 per pupil a year.. If your school is in a deprived area, it is likely to receive a very significant amount of PP funding. This money should be used by the school to close the gap between disadvantaged and non disadvantaged pupils. If you are able to make the case that pupils avoid school when they have their periods or are so stressed because they don't have appropriate sanitary protection that they can't concentrate or that not having sanitary protection affects their confidence or makes them feel ashamed or embarrassed in school, I think that would be grounds for using some of the funding on sanitary protection. Most SLT in schools are male. Bet you anything, using PP funding in this way wouldn't have occurred to a male head.

We have a stockpile in our first aid room that any girl can go in and help themselves to. Most of us (female!) teachers, will throw an extra pack of pads in our shopping every so often and add it to the pile.

I went to an all girls school and we had a few female teachers who always kept a selection of pads and tampons on them so if anyone was caught off guard we could get one of them but there was basic sanitary items kept in the first aid room to but the teachers had the nicer stuff! All schools should have free sanitary items for the girls it's disgraceful it's not commonplace.

You can get own brand towels cheaply in supermarkets and high st shops like Wilko. They're about 15p for a pack.

The first aid room at school has a box of sanitary towels. I'm not sure how many students would be confident enough to ask for one though - the "nurse" is intimidating to me as a teacher!

I have also given them out to students a couple of times when girls have asked me. I don't buy them especially for students or advertise that I have them though. I expect most female staff would happily give students pads/tampons from their own supply.

The difference is, my school has below average FSM and I expect there are very few students who can't afford it, so it's just a case of "one offs" when they've forgotten to bring any that day. Providing a longer term solution for students in period poverty would be more complicated, especially if you want girls to have access to sanitary protection at home as well as school. The Red Box project Toss linked above looks good.

Girls' state secondary school:

We write off to the sanitary supply companies at the beginning of the year. They send us several boxes of sample packs, designed to be given to girls in Y7 when they have a talk about puberty / periods. We keep the pads & tampons in accessible boxes in the medical room. The girls come and ask for them whenever they need them. They are not embarrassed about this (possibly because it's a girls' school?) and we often get half a dozen asking each day.

We have a small budget to buy additional pads (2.5p each from the supermarket) if these run out before the end of the school year.

We check absence patterns: if a girl is missing school for a few days every month then we would discretely speak with her and offer support.

*discreetly
Although when we speak to her she would be separate from her peers, so I guess it is discretely too.

I don't think it's a big issue where I am, and didn't think it to be a problem in the UK either, but have heard of sanitary pads being a real problem in poor areas in e.g. Africa.
Sanitary pads made of cotton cloth are a little bit more long-term solution, they're washable and can be reused month after month, although you'd obviously need more than one. Patterns here: fuzbaby.com/a/make-cloth-menstrual-pads/
Lovely story here about "Sew in peace" re. Haiti: sewinpeace.blogspot.se/2013/08/feminine-cloth-pad-tutorial.html there's also an address whom to contact, maybe you OP could check it out.

I have them available in my classro but afaik none has taken any!

There was a thread and a petition started last year about exactly this.

It was completely eye opening - girls missing school or having to use socks as protection.

The cost of travelling to a shop by bus and back to buy overpriced pads if not local to a supermarket...multiplied by a couple of females in the household etc

Great use of PP money if it keeps girls in school each month