Attitudes of teenagers and professionals to sex, relationships, sexual health and teenage pregnancy

The findings of a two year cross-channel teenage pregnancy project were presented at a conference in Amiens on 8 October.

Titled Let’s Talk, the project set out to explore the values and attitudes of groups of teenagers and professionals to sex, relationships, sexual health and teenage pregnancy. To date, the information gathered from the project has been used by young people and professionals to develop new ways of looking at education and health services, with the aim of tackling teenage pregnancy.

Jenny Billings, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent, said, ‘Until Let’s Talk little work had been done to explore how young people’s attitudes and values have an impact on their sexual behaviour, risk taking and use of support services. Young people in Kent and the Somme have taken part in focus group meetings to discover these attitudes and a young people’s advisory group has participated in the development of the interventions. By involving young people directly in this work, Let’s Talk has developed a better understanding of the complex influences on their behaviour and the resources created are now seen by them as being relevant and influential.’

The partners in Let’s Talk, an Interreg project, part-funded under the European Regional Development Fund, are: the Centre for Health Service Studies, University of Kent; the Health and Europe Centre at the European Institute of Social Services, University of Kent; Kent County Council; Eastern and Coastal Primary Care Trust; Kent Teenage Pregnancy Partnership; the Comité régional d’éducation pour la santé de Picardie (CRES); Académie d’Amiens; and the Conseil General de la Somme.