A case study of Social developments in Teen pregnancy prevention in Britain

1Causes of Teen Pregnancy. 2 Effects of Teen Pregnancy. 3 Prevention of Teen Pregnancy. British public view on teen pregnancy. Policies on teen pregnancy. World Health Organization (WHO) defines teen pregnancy as the conception of a woman between the ages of 10-19 whilst UNICEF ranges the year span between 13 and 19. Labor Government Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) staged a report to the parliament acknowledging teen pregnancy as a major scourge. This took place referencing the damage that teen pregnancy brings to the mothers' health, social, professional and academic progress. Introduction. The British Association of Social Workers explicitly describes teenage pregnancy as a social issue prevalent among uninformed, neglected or experimenting teenagers. 1 Causes of teenage pregnancy in Britain. According to BASW, Research shows that teenage pregnancy rates heavily relies on varied factors and aspects which are all intertwined with each other thereby making the topic somewhat a convoluted one.

2Sociodemographic contributors to teen pregnancy include the time when these young people start to understand sexual matters accompanied by the dynamic changing family patterns over the recent past. today, sexual activity among teens begin comparatively earlier than it used to do explaining the rampancy of teen pregnancy, in as much as variations may still occur. Below are some of the highlights of pregnancy causes. Access to this should be shouldered on everyone who’s in is touch with the youth making a beginning from the parents, their teachers, respective schools scaling down to education stakeholders. 3 Lack of proper parental guidance. Teens with limited parental guidance are more likely to get pregnant. Digging into the roots of it some parents have become too professionally busy to have time with their young teenagers and discuss sexual issues.

4Apparently, if a teen doesn’t have a sex education from their parents and guardians, they will seek it from fellow friends who may turn out to be of poor advice. This has been questionably discussed in Britain over the recent years to root the core source of this menace. The concern aims at the question that what will befall Britain if the current mass media content is solely targeted to enable the teens to get used to sexual content at an early age and also encourage them to perceive it as something normal? The media and current movies have developed a flavor for the teens by embedding romantic sense and photos into them. This captures the full attention of teens who are curious to know the outcome of what they see.

5Media have glamorized sex and pregnancy such that most teens view it as one thing that ought to have been socially acceptable. Movies that have portrayed sex and pregnancy as something strongly desired by the teens lure teens into a reckless sexual activity that result to teen pregnancy 2. Research shows that a good number of teens who get pregnant don’t show up well with their academics 8Similarly, poor academic ability and outcomes may trigger early sexual activity and terminal pregnancy (Children's Defense Fund, 1986). Recent studies show that school dropout rates have scaled higher which is contributed by increased teen pregnancy. Closed to one-third of teenage girls who are misfortune to drop out of school state pregnancy as their core reason.

Only about 45% of teenage mothers make it through high school successfully. this is philosophically true because the idea of balancing studies and childbearing has proved to be a rocket science. 3 Prevention of teenage pregnancy. There are various policies, guidelines and statements laid down in support of the reduction of teen pregnancy. The policies are bringing together all the prevailing evidence of the major pregnancy causes and drawing solutions from them. in 1999, Britain launched a teen pregnancy strategy that was masterminded by 10Alison Hadley who reported that the aim of the strategy was to create a teen pregnancy knowledge exchange that ensures that the learned lessons reach policymakers and high ranking leaders not only in Britain but globally. High-quality relationships and sex education were introduced in the various institution, schools, and colleges.

Politically in Britain, the teen motherhood symbolized a socio-economic downfall. The filthy idea came into place with the timid ancient British government who politicized the idea of single motherhood by giving it a dirty description as a screen that portrays the prevalent poor moral standards that threaten societal growth. 12This political perception was however brought into alteration following the triumph of the labor party in 1997 which gave the same issue a different view based on social equality. Under this new regime, issues like teen pregnancy were perceived as components of 'societal eviction' where victims were denied the rights to fully get engaged in the society. The British policymakers have a great controversy over the issue of teen pregnancy. Comparatively, ten solid years was a generous enough time.

Evidently, the policies are self-regulatory as they were conducted targeting provision of skills to make upright personal decisions regarding sexual health. Teen pregnancy knowledge exchange. 15The strategy came to a halt on the onset of the new coalition government. To ensure that previous lessons were not in vain, a Teenage pregnancy knowledge exchange was created at Bedfordshire University. Additionally, pregnant teens and moms are given good health care as well as a second chance in the community as well as access to education. 1 Success of the policies. The implementation of these teen pregnancy policies was an on head success due to the experts involved in the agenda. It took Britain to involve high ranking stakeholders who included governmental officials, educationists, philosophers, politicians and members of non-governmental organizations.

The national government involved the local community in the implementation by devolving the policies to local areas which availed sustainable data that aided in comparison of the policy requirements to teenager’s needs. The result is due handling humanitarian crisis professionally. This article has extensively discussed social work laws and policies that help curb teenage pregnancy as is a social issue. In order to completely terminate teen pregnancy and parenthood, social work programs ensures that the entire community is entitled to comprehensively get to understand the sense of abstaining from teenage sex and use of contraceptives. This should be executed by the government and decentralized to local areas. Teens should get sex education at a tender age such that they get real-time knowledge on tackling sexual issues.