Tasmania discontinues funding for period pain, endometriosis school education program
The Tasmanian government has discontinued funding for a popular period pain education program delivered in state schools, instead choosing to provide its own in-house program.
Tasmania
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A school education program teaching Tasmanian students about period pain and how to manage it will no longer be delivered in state schools after the Rockliff government declined a request for a funding extension.
The Department for Education, Children and Young People has instead developed its own program to help teach girls and people assigned female at birth about pelvic pain and endometriosis.
This will be delivered by teachers and school health nurses, rather than a clinical educator, from mid-2025 to students in years 9 and 10.
This means that the Pelvic Pain Foundation of Australia’s (PPFA) renowned Periods, Pain and Endometriosis Program (PPEP Talk) will no longer be a fixture in the government school system.
The PPEP Talks have been provided at 40 state schools over the past two years and have been well received by participating students.
The PPFA had sought $115,000 per annum from the state government to expand the program and deliver it for a further two years, hoping to visit half of all state high schools in Tasmania annually.
However, the government rejected the request, instead opting to provide its own in-house program.
About one in four Australian girls and women experience severe period pain, while endometriosis impacts an estimated one in seven. Endometriosis occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows in other parts of the body, which breaks down when a girl or woman has their period, potentially causing pain, inflammation, and scarring.
Period pain can keep female students from attending school and PPFA general manager Renee Rankin said it was evident from the foundation’s research that Tasmanian girls were “struggling” with it.
A government spokeswoman said the initial funding of $91,500 per annum was “provided on a transitional basis” as the department developed “its own model for 2025 onwards” but Ms Rankin said she was never advised of this.
She said it was “incredibly disappointing” that the government had denied the organisation’s funding request to extend and expand the program, stating that it meant young people would “miss out on essential education that has already proven its value”.
“One of the most important things we’ve learned over the years is that students feel safe opening up to us – precisely because we’re not the teacher or nurse they see every day. That’s when the real questions come out. That’s when impact happens,” Ms Rankin said.
PPEP Talk will still be delivered in Tasmanian independent and Catholic schools under a funding agreement with the Commonwealth government.
The state government says its new education program, Pelvic Pain and Beyond: Health Literacy for Wellness, is a “comprehensive, five-lesson module”.
Greens health spokeswoman Cecily Rosol, who first raised the cessation of funding to PPFA in parliament last week, said the PPEP Talk program was “making a real difference, and it should be given the funding to continue and expand, not be cut”.
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