Learning from practice

Thurrock’s teenage pregnancy rate has fallen by 30.7% between 1998 to 2004.

Thurrock Teenage Pregnancy Partnership Board and its relationship with the Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership (CYPSP) has changed over recent years with the advent of the first Children and Young People’s plan and the reconfiguration of the local CYPSP. As a unitary authority there is a single Director of Children’s Services and an amalgamated Directorate of Children’s, Education and Families (CEF) that takes account of the previous separate directorates of education and social care.

The CYPSP currently works with the coterminous Primary Care Trust (PCT) to effect planning and implementation for children and young people’s services. The local Teenage Pregnancy Coordinator is employed and hosted through the PCT and directly reports through the public health team, with dual reporting to the Strategic Lead for Targeted Services within CEF. This arrangement ensures that both key statutory partners are fully involved in the planning process and ownership of the strategy.

The CYPSP had adopted an age-based framework for channelling all areas of planning and commissioning. This meant that the Teenage Pregnancy Action Plans and monitoring process were reported through the 13-19 Executive Board of the CYPSP. Whilst this did not account for all the activity within the plans, it made for a substantial home for the teenage pregnancy agenda over the last five years.

However this changed in June 2006 to take account of the Every Child Matters Five Outcomes Framework approach. For the future, the issues of teenage pregnancy and young people’s substance misuse will have much greater union and common themes within each of these areas will be jointly addressed. This should lead to a greater emphasis on prevention and education and a sharing of resources. These will be addressed through a ‘high risk behaviour’ interest group, taking on board some of the previous functions and planning of the Teenage Pregnancy Partnership Board, with the commissioning functions fulfilled by the ‘Be Healthy’ – CYPSP Executive Board.

Case study from Teenage Pregnancy Next Steps:Guidance for Local Authorities and Primary Care Trusts on Effective Delivery of Local Strategies Non Statutory Guidance from DfES Every Child Matters Change for Children at http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/resources-and-practice/IG00145