An extensive study published today reveals that girls as young as 13 are making a "career choice" by deciding to have children, since they see parenting as preferable to working in a dead-end job.

The findings from the Trust for the Study of Adolescence challenges the assumption that schoolgirl mothers are all irresponsible adolescents who are ignorant about using contraception. The revelation that teenage girls are actively choosing motherhood is backed up by official figures obtained by this paper which show that nearly a quarter of pregnancies to under 18s are second children.

The research will have huge implications for government policy, which gives little acknowledgement to the fact that some girls see motherhood as the right decision for them. Britain has highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, with an estimated cost to the Government of at least £63m a year.

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Over a two-year period, 78 per cent of conceptions among under-18s in Epping Forest District ended in abortion, the highest rate in England and Wales and 10 per cent higher than in the preceding two years.

The figures released by the Office for National Statistics relate to 2005 – 2007 and reveal that there were 188 conceptions for under-18s, 147 of which ended in abortion.

From thisistotalessex.co.uk

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03 February 2009 By Leah Strug

BINGE-drinking teens are putting themselves at risk of getting pregnant – the Government has warned.

The information was released as the Government steps up the campaign to raise awareness of the risks of heavy drinking.

The number of young people who drink is coming down, but those who do are drinking more often, and more heavily.

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This has led to a rise in gonorrhea by 42 per cent between 1998 and 2007. And almost 3 per cent of British teenage girls give birth, the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe.

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09.30 – 13.30 (including lunch)

This conference is aimed at practitioners from across Youth Work, Children’s Social Care, Youth Offending, Link for Life, Connexions, and school based teams; as well as the voluntary sector organisations and individual practitioners from other organisations including in the private sector.

Improving our knowledge of and our responses to sexual exploitation is imperative in protecting the most vulnerable young people in Rochdale. In 2009 Rochdale will launch a new Sexual Exploitation Unit, which will allow us to tackle these issues, support young people and hamper paedophile activity. Working together in safeguarding is a priority for all agencies and this conference will shape our responses to the challenge of sexual exploitation of young people.

Proposed Agenda



9.30 Conference Opening

9.45 Introduction - Aims of the day and the new Sexual Exploitation Unit

10.00 Sara Swann – National Overview

10.30 Gladys Rhodes – Lessons to be learned from Blackburn


11.0 Break

11.30 Tony Philbin – Local picture and Safeguarding

11.45 Kate Kennedy – Links with the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy

12.00 Workshop – How can your agency contribute?

12.45 Closing Speech - Terry Piggott – Sexual Exploitation as a local priority

13.00 Lunch

Please contact Amy Hallisey, amy.hallisey@rochdale.gov.uk, 01706 925163 to register your interest before the 16th January 2009 as places are limited.

For the study, the researchers analysed the attitudes of 35 boys and girls between 14-16 years of age, who had gone to clinics for contraception in areas with high teenage pregnancy rates.

From Express India

IT'S not news that men and women can have vastly differing attitudes to sex, but health professionals have been probing those attitudes in young teens in an attempt to understand their links with pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease and abuse of alcohol in socially deprived areas of South Yorkshire.

From The Yorkshire Post