Unwanted teenage pregnancy
First of all let’s accentuate the positive! More than two thirds of under 16s do not have sex, fewer than 1% get pregnant and most teenage girls reach their twenties without getting pregnant.
This is an important message to get across. Recent research by Brook found that 95% of people, and especially young people, wildly overestimate the rates of teenage pregnancy and this fuels a sense that ‘everybody’s doing it’ and sex and teenage pregnancy is the ‘norm’.
However despite excellent progress in recent years:
The UK has the highest teenage birth and abortion rates in Western Europe
Since 1998 when the government set up the Teenage Pregnancy Unit there has been an overall decrease for under 18s in England of 13.3% and 13% decrease for girls under 16 (based on 2008 provisional figures). In Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly rates are down by 18.4% (based on 2006 figures).
More statistics are available on the national teenage pregnancy website.
Teenage pregnancy is often both a consequence of social exclusion and a cause of it. Teenage parents tend to have poor antenatal health, lower birth-weight babies and higher infant mortality rates. They tend to remain poor.
Groups who are more vulnerable to becoming teenage parents include those
- who are living in poverty
- who are in care or leaving care
- who have truanted or been excluded from school
- whose mother was a teenage mother
- who are underachieving at school
- who have low aspirations
- who have not been in education, training or work post 16
- who suffered sexual abuse in childhood
- who have been involved in crime or antisocial behaviour or
- who have mental health problems.
Young women living in socially deprived areas are less likely to opt for an abortion If they get pregnant.
What works?
Preventing unwanted teenage pregnancy
- The existence of a discrete, credible, highly visible, young-people-friendly sexual health and contraceptive advice service, with a focus on health promotion as well as reactive services
- Strong delivery of SRE/PSHE by schools
- Targeted work with at-risk groups of young people, particularly looked-after children
- Workforce training on sex and relationship issues within mainstream partner agencies
- A well resourced Youth Service, with a clear remit to tackle big social issues, such as young people’s sexual health
- Support to teenage parents to avoid unwanted second pregnancies
Deep Dive Survey (Teenage Pregnancy Unit)
Schools, both primary and secondary, have an important role to play in helping to tackle unwanted teenage pregnancy and in supporting young people who have children, including teenage fathers, to overcome the difficulties they face, especially in trying to help them stay in education and achieve to their full potential.
The Teenage Pregnancy Unit and others with a strong interest in reducing unwanted teenage pregnancy have put Healthy Schools at the heart of delivering better SRE and PSHEe.
A high priority should be given to PSHE in schools, with support from the local authority to develop comprehensive programmes of SRE in all schools.
Improving PSHE
"We … want all young people – both boys and girls – to have access to high quality information about sex and relationships and support to develop the skills, confidence and appropriate values framework they need to make and carry through positive choices, including a strong focus on the benefits of delaying early sex. Evidence from practice suggests that strong PSHE, active citizenship and pastoral care can improve engagement with learning through building self-esteem, emotional development, reducing bullying and improving behaviour – as well as helping to tackle key health issues such as teenage pregnancy and substance misuse. We have signalled the importance of PSHE through its inclusion in the mandatory requirements of the Healthy Schools Programme. … All schools will either be a healthy school or working towards Healthy School Status by 2009” ".
The Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Unit (TPIAG) in its sixth annual report, welcomes the government's intention that PSHE be made statutory and urges the government to prioritise the legislation's passage through Parliament. TPIAG also recognises the important role Healthy Schools have to play in delivering high quality PSHE and SRE.
In Cornwall Healthy Schools we are working to and exceeding all the guidance currently set out for healthy schools TPU and TPIAG, including, for example, the inclusion of the Are You Getting it Right? toolkit as part of our audit, the introduction of the Speakeasy programme for parents and an increased focus within the annual review, the enhancement model and Healthy Schools Plus on the needs of children in care. Our innovative work on Healthy Schools Plus will focus on teenage pregnancy and SRE as one of its key areas.
“The way forward is through the National Healthy Schools Programme, which reflects practice proven to be effective in four inextricably linked themes: PSHE, Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and EHWB”.