Targeted youth support: redesigning services - making sexual health services more effective

Issue

There is strong service support for teenage parents in York, but preventing teenage pregnancies is a challenge.

Background

York has an effective teenage pregnancy coordinator and board and, prior to targeted youth support (TYS), there was some multi-agency work going on around support and prevention. The teenage coordinator identifies more than 90% of teenage parents and has very effective arrangements for support through Connexions.

Schools and school health services provided sexual health advice and contraceptive services, and teachers, youth workers and Connexions worked well together. Even so schools were struggling to find space for sexual health education in their busy curriculum.

Despite this support, teenage pregnancy levels remain high.

Actions prompted by TYS

The early stages of the TYS change process identified challenges in the provision and variable quality of sexual health education in York.

The TYS team brought a group of service practitioners together in a change team. The team meets on a regular basis to explore sexual relationships and sexual education issues for young people. In particular, the team makes efforts to examine these issues from local young people's perspective.

Benefits and results

It soon became clear to the TYS team that teenage pregnancy, like other negative outcomes for young people, is not an isolated phenomenon in York. It results from the low aspirations for and of young people, their families and their communities. These findings agree with those in the latest evaluation report of teenage pregnancy services nationally.

The team decided that sexual health advice, education and services need to be integrated into the support for young people, with a range of multi-agency provision available within and around schools and in drop-in centres and through outreach workers.

The team has developed a working model where youth workers, mental health workers, health, Connexions, teachers, social workers and educational welfare meet on a regular basis and use the common assessment framework (CAF) to help identify any additional support young people (and service staff) need to improve their aspirations and outcomes. In particular, they hope to provide young women with the awareness that they have other options for independence and fulfilment than early motherhood.

The impact of these changes will be assessed using existing teenage pregnancy measures.

The TYS work group has focused on the issues and come up with the solutions
Stephen Flatley, TYS project manager and Connexions manager

The local authority

York is a unitary authority. Its TYS pathfinder is focused on west York, an area of relative deprivation. York's statistical neighbours include Northumberland, the Isle of Wight, Warwickshire, Darlington, Warrington, Worcestershire, East Riding Yorkshire, Calderdale, Bedfordshre and North Lincolnshire.

Click to read more case studies on redesigning services to help young people with particular needs.