Schools
Redbridge has excellent schools which act as an important protective factor against teenage conceptions.
Research highlights the links between low educational attainment, disengagement from school, a dislike of school and leaving education at 16 with no formal qualifications to higher risk of Teenage Pregnancy.
Working together with Schools and the Education Service, Redbridge Teenage Pregnancy Strategy is working hard to reduce under-18 conceptions through high quality Sex and Relationships Education and provision of services, such as school-based clinics.
Alongside this, we work to minimise the risk of long term social exclusion for teenage parents by ensuring they have access to education services both during and after their pregnancy.
A major US study of SRE programmes (Kirby, 2007) found that around two-thirds of the curriculum based sex education programs studied had positive effects on teenage sexual behaviour. For example, they delayed the initiation of sex, increased condom or contraceptive use, or both.
(Teenage Pregnancy Strategy: Beyond 2010, pg17)
