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Teenage pregnancy battle boosted
COUNCIL bosses in Sheffield are expected to spend almost half a million pounds on trying to keep the city's teenage pregnancy rates low.
At present, Sheffield has the second-lowest pregnancy rates for girls aged between 15 and 17 of the largest cities in England, with about 470 of them – or one in 20 – getting pregnant each year. Now, the council plans to spend 230,000 each year over the next two years on improving sexual health services for young people, which will focus on tackling sexually-transmitted diseases as well as teenage pregnancy.
For the past year, Sheffield Council and NHS Sheffield have together been piloting two schemes in two areas of the city, which have included one-to-one mentoring with girls, health workshops, contraceptive and sexual health advice and working with parents and carers.
Following the success of these schemes, the project is now set to be rolled out to other areas of Sheffield, specifically targeting vulnerable girls as well as schools and neighbourhoods with the highest rates of teenage conceptions.
This follows a similar scheme in Maltby, Rotherham, which targeted 60 young girls in the area. Following a two-year period, only one of those youngsters had become pregnant while still a teenager.
This represents a rate of 16 pregnancies per 1,000 girls, compared to the current Sheffield rate of 50 per 1,000 for the same age group.
Coun Andrew Sangar, Sheffield Council's cabinet member for children's services and lifelong learning, said: "It is important that we give our young people every chance we can in life to make sure they can achieve their aspirations and this is a key tool in helping us achieve that aim and one which I welcome very much.
"If we want to reduce teenage pregnancy and levels of sexually transmitted infections in the city, then we need to make sure that all young people – boys and girls – are well informed about methods of contraception and protection and know where they can go and who they can talk to so that they make well informed choices."
The extension of the scheme is set to be agreed at a meeting of Sheffield Council's cabinet committee which takes place at the Town Hall at 2pm next Wednesday.
The report set to go before that meeting says that a range of
sexual health education programmes have already
been undertaken in Sheffield, which have included improving knowledge about reproduction and contraception, increasing girls' motivation to
avoid becoming pregnant and improving access to contraception.
However, the report says there is still more which can be done.
It states: "After a great deal of effort, we believe that we are starting to get things right in Sheffield.
"Statistics show over the last few years what we are doing is starting to have an effect – teenage conceptions appear to be reducing slightly.
"However, the pace of change is too slow. We believe we are doing the rights things but on too small a scale.
"We want to raise our efforts, and, critically, we want to engage young people themselves in helping us shape the services that will improve young people's knowledge about sex, their motivation to avoid unsafe sex, and their ability to access services that will help them avoid taking unnecessary risks."
Sue Greig, consultant in public health at NHS Sheffield, welcomed the scheme.
She said: "The benefits of transforming the life chances of these young people are huge, both to the individuals involved, and to the city as a whole."
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