Teenage Pregnancy Research Report - 3p Consulting

What worksAs the Netherlands and Sweden have comparativelylow rates of teenage pregnancy in comparison withdeveloped western countries, how they provide sexeducation to young people is considered to be a modelthat could assist in helping those countries that grapplewith higher rates, such as the US, Canada, the UKand Australia. The Netherlands has the second lowestteenage birth rate and the lowest teenage pregnancyrate in the developed world at 4.1 per 1,000. In the past30 years the Netherlands has reduced teenage births by72% and has also maintained a low abortion rate amongthis age group.While the Scandinavians and the Dutch have differentapproaches or systems to educating their young peopleabout sex and contraception, they have commonelements and these include:• Society as a whole, as well as political and socialpolicy, reflect an acceptance of sexual activity andcontraception use among teenagers;• All children have access to sex education;• Sex education starts early and is addressed eachyear;was withdrawn because of community concern aboutchildren “losing their innocence”. This was at the sametime as the government continued to spend considerablepublic money to support teen parents and their children.In summary, countries that have relatively high rates ofteenage births have a number of factors in common:• divergent and disparate views of teenage sexualitythat play out in the public and political arena;• haphazard implementation of sex education;• difficulty for teenagers accessing contraceptionincluding abortion;• a high differential of wealth and poverty, and;• a significant ethnic or cultural minority.The first three factors outlined above have implicationsin tackling emerging adolescent sexuality and sexeducation policies. The link between teenage pregnancyand parenting and the final two dot points are examinedin more detail in the pregnancy and parenting sections.• An emphasis is placed on supporting adolescentsto develop healthy, safe, responsible and positiveattitudes towards sexuality, and to strengthen theirskills in communication and negotiation about safesex;• There is a gender equality perspective andmulticultural diversity, and;• There is a strong link between the schools andcontraceptive clinic services for adolescents. 11The above approaches can be compared with the US,which has a more ambiguous and shifting public andpolitical approach to teenage sexuality and demonstratesclearly how policy decisions impact on teenagepregnancy rates. Most federal funding in the US toreduce teenage pregnancy rates in 2002, for example,was allocated to promoting an abstinence-only programresponse to contraception. Despite figures showinga steep decline in the 1990s and a flattening out in theearly 2000s, teen pregnancy and birth rates increasedamong all ethnic and racial groups between 2005 and2006 when abstinence-only programs became morewidespread. 12 Similarly, a central recommendation to theBritish government designed to help prevent the highteenage pregnancy and birth rates in the UK in 1999 byextending sex education programs into primary schools,33