Wokingham

Figures recently announced by the national Teenage Pregnancy Unit show that the rate of teenage pregnancies in the Wokingham district has fallen by almost 30%.

The Wokingham district is making good progress in reducing teenage pregnancies since a
strategy was developed in 1998 to address this. For the past six years health, social care and education professionals, to name just a few, have been working hard to reduce the rate, which at the time was one of the highest in the country.

And the good news is, the hard work has paid off with the Wokingham district reducing teenage pregnancies by 29.4% and is now the second lowest rate in England. And the district has the ninth highest reduction over this six-year period (1998 to 2004). When the government launched the national teenage pregnancy strategy they set a target for all local authorities to reduce the under-18 conception rate by 15%, which the Wokingham district has achieved by almost double.

The work of the Wokingham District Teenage Pregnancy Board has been instrumental in bringing down the rates in the district. This has been achieved by strengthening partnership working between health, social care and education and by ensuring that all agencies are working together to provide good sexual and emotional health services to young people.

More training has been made available to staff such as the ARC mentors (youth counselling) in schools, teachers, school nurses and governors on sexual health, drugs, sex and relationships. Support for young people has been available at youth clubs with drop-in sessions offering advice and information on sex and relationships. Information ‘credit’ cards have also helped young people, which they can carry around with them, providing useful information such as telephone numbers.

Over the past six years, work has been undertaken with the most vulnerable young people in the Wokingham district such as those in care or young offenders, to develop knowledge and skills to access health services.

But what’s next? The partnership board is currently looking at national evaluation of teenage pregnancy and what services were in place to reduce the rates. These will be looked at locally to see whether these services can be introduced in the district to reduce the rate even further. More work will be carried out with schools to develop sex and relationship programmes under the healthy schools programme.

Cllr Debbie Lewis, the Wokingham council’s executive member for health, said: “I am particularly pleased with the significant reduction in the conception rates and these are now at the lowest point since 1998. This reduction is a real credit to everyone including the many agencies involved in working with young people. These results show that with the better co-ordination of services it has a direct impact on figures. But, whilst these figures are encouraging, there is no room for complacency.”

Georgina Clarke, teenage pregnancy co-ordinator, said: “The figures that have recently been announced only look at conception rates up to 2004, and whilst this fall is good news for the district, even more work has been carried our since then to look at reducing the rate even further. We remain committed to ensuring the district’s young people have access to good sexual and emotional health services as we continue to address this issue.”

Wokingham District Council