Teen Pregnancy Workers: Working Hard to Support All Young People

It’s a daunting task contacting numerous sexual health and pregnancy services for young people around England but it’s turned into an incredibly rewarding one. In order to create service audit tools for three pilot sites in England that I am working with and to learn how other services are evaluating their provision, I’ve been emailing and calling service providers, administrators and many different workers from all along the pregnancy services continuum – sex and relationships education (SRE), contraception, STI testing, and pregnancy testing services, pregnancy decision-making support, antenatal services, abortion services, and post-pregnancy contraception. Phew!

The workers I’ve spoken to all know that there won’t be much money for the vitally important prevention and support work they do. They know the Department for Education will ask local councils to decide how to cut budgets for their programmes, including teenage pregnancy. However, it’s heartening to hear from dedicated workers of their fierce commitment to implementing and maintaining the strongest sexual health and pregnancy services that they can provide for young people.

There is the UR Choice programme, a Sex and Relationships Education programme in Bradford and Airedale schools that hopes to expand into more schools. There is a great new pregnancy pathway resource used by health workers in the southeast to make sure young pregnant women have access to whatever services they need for whichever choice they make about their pregnancy. There is the robust teenage pregnancy team in the northeast that offers a number of education and health services for young people in schools, at clinics, and in other places young people are through outreach. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Our volunteer supporting this project commented on how impressed she was with the sheer number of services for young people in this country and that she wished she knew about them when she was younger (note: the definition of ‘young person’ varies from service to service, Brook accepts clients up to the age of 25 so do a bit of research before you book in; you never know, you might still be categorized as a young person!).

Despite budget cuts and a lack of public recognition, workers in teenage pregnancy services are working harder than ever and their commitment to the issue is crystal clear to me. Let’s give it up for our sexual health and teen pregnancy workers!

(We’re always keen to learn what’s going on in other parts of the country. Why not tell us what’s going on in your area in the comments section below?)

Marie Stopes Helpline Advert to Air Tonight

Today Marie Stopes International, one of the UK’S biggest abortion providers, launches a television advertising campaign. The advert (which you can watch here, or tonight on Channel 4 at 10.10 PM) directs women who have missed a period to the Marie Stopes unplanned pregnancy and sexual health helpline. Marie Stopes says the advert is a response to research that finds the majority of people wouldn’t know how to access specialist advice if they or their partner faced an unplanned pregnancy. Anti-abortion organisations Life and SPUC have complained that advertising Marie Stopes services trivialises abortion. SPUC says it is taking advice on whether to challenge the legality of the advert.

It is not surprising that an advert that alludes to abortion is controversial. The consensus in the UK seems to be that abortion is something that should be freely provided, but should not be talked about if at all possible. Although one in three women in the UK will have an abortion in their lifetimes, this common procedure remains shrouded in myth and mystery. This is one of the reasons why the EFC blog has launched Myth-Busting Monday today and will be posting a new myth-busting fact each week. It’s also the reason why we welcome clearer and more accessible information for women on how to access abortion if that is what they have chosen.

National helplines play a vital role in providing accurate information for people wanting to prevent pregnancy and those who face unplanned pregnancy. For many women a telephone service is the best, most convenient way for them to access information and advice, but these services must be complemented by good, accurate information about local services available from the professionals women meet face to face every day. That means that whether a woman asks her family planning clinic, her GP, her health visitor or other health practitioner locally, they should all be able to provide really good, clear information on how to get support with unplanned pregnancy. Young women especially need to know that they can ask the professional they trust – whether it is a school nurse or other health worker, a youth worker, a social worker, or a Connexions worker – to give them the support they need to consider their pregnancy options and access the services they need to continue healthily with a pregnancy or to have an abortion. Training should be available for all professionals who work with young people to ensure that they can provide accurate information about all pregnancy options and local referral pathways.

But before you open that phone book, keep in mind: Some services which offer advice and guidance for women facing unplanned pregnancy are anti-abortion and may try to deter women from having an abortion. Organisations which advertise free pregnancy helplines, pregnancy testing, abortion counselling and post-abortion counselling, may not always provide accurate information or impartial support. This video shows how some of these centres operate. For more information on how to assess a local information service EFC’s Best Practice Toolkit: Pregnancy Decision-Making Support is free to download.

Helplines you can trust:
Brook - provides a specialist sexual health helpline for young people and has a network of clinics around the country providing face-to-face support
Fpa – provides a helpline for men and women of all ages and will help you find a local clinic
Marie Stopes and bpas – provide a range of sexual health services including abortion. Most of the abortions they provide are funded by the NHS
NHS Choices – information on all aspects of health including abortion, ante-natal care and child health