New scheme to curb teenage pregnancies

London:  Tens of thousands of girls could be put in charge of toddlers in an attempt to stop them getting pregnant.

Ministers have backed a charity which gives teenagers deemed at risk of having unprotected sex the chance to supervise and play with young children at nurseries.

The idea is for them to experience at first hand the demands and responsibilities of parenthood.

Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin is convinced the scheme, which his advisers admit is unusual, could help slash Britain's teenage pregnancy rates, the highest in western Europe.

Every year there are more than 40,000 conceptions to under-18s more than double the rate seen in France.

The idea is contained in a document produced by the government's Behavioural Insight Team, which looks at ways to encourage people to lead healthier lives by "nudging" them in the right direction.

The report said more was needed to be done on teenage pregnancy. Studies have shown that women who have babies during their teenage years are likely to do badly at school and suffer from depression.

Social deprivation

Teenage mothers are more likely to end up in social deprivation and are at risk of adopting risky behaviours such as drug-taking and alcoholism.

In an attempt to tackle the problem, the report calls for more councils to work with the charity Teens and Toddlers, which gives teenage girls the opportunity to mentor a toddler for 20 weeks for an hour or so a week.

After this, they take part in sessions with trained support workers who teach them about child development, parenting skills, sexuality and relationships. The teenagers can also discuss their experiences with one another. The charity has found that, over a six-year period, the pregnancy rate of those who had taken part was 2.7 per cent compared with a national average of 4.1 per cent.

The report described the charity's scheme as promising, even if it was rather unusual in its approach. It said: "The widespread practice by many schools when it comes to preventing teenage pregnancy is to bring in young teenage mothers to discourage pupils from following their lead. In many cases, this will be ineffective or even counter-productive.

"In contrast, the Teens and Toddlers approach actively brings home the enormity of the responsibility of bringing up a child, fosters emotional development and has been shown to change young people's behaviour."

Success

So far, the charity has worked with 26 councils, and more than 6,000 teenagers have taken part.

The report says government reforms will make it easier for councils to work with charities like Teens and Toddlers, "paving the way for this kind of innovative approach to become more widespread".

The UK's £300 million (Dh1.7 billion) Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, unveiled a decade ago, was supposed to halve the rate of pregnancy among girls aged under 18 in England by 2010. Numbers have gone down, but by nowhere near as much as hoped.

The government's report said the Teens and Toddlers approach worked because "our behaviour is strongly influenced by what we see other people doing".