A CLINIC which offers sex advice to young people is spending thousands on boosting its image.

Blackburn's Brook Advisory Centre is to expand into the ground floor of their Darwen Street premises to make it more welcoming to anxious clients.

The centre, which provides a family planning service aimed at 16 to 25-year-olds, currently uses the first floor of the premises.

Centre manager Sheila Shaw said: "The ground floor has been empty for some time and is boarded up. It gives the centre a dismal and unoccupied look.

"It is our intention to improve the outside image and use the whole building, which we now have the funds to do."

The centre - whose mission is "the promotion of good sexual health to young people by providing for them a centre for confidential guidance and contraception enabling a responsible attitude to managing relationships and reducing unplanned pregnancy" - is also on the look-out for more qualified doctors and nurses.

They have recently appointed an Outreach worker in the borough's City Challenge area who will offer advice in community centres, schools and pubs and clubs.

Since the Blackburn Brook opened in 1994, the number of young people visiting the centre has increased dramatically and there are two extra clinic sessions each week.

"The expansion of the service obviously calls for bigger premises," Sheila added. "Hopefully we will soon operate from the whole building and make the service more appealing to young people."

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