Consultation on the Pregnancy and Parenthood in Young People Strategy: Analysis of Responses

6. Engagement with Young People

The development of the draft Strategy involved engagement with young people. The Scottish Government describes an underpinning principle of the Strategy and its actions as empowering and supporting young people to have the skills and knowledge to make their own life decisions. The Government intends that young people should be at the heart of how services for them are designed and delivered.

Question 17: Do you have examples of good practice from your area that could be shared with others?

This question was answered by 27 respondents. Responses varied from those providing general commentary to those specifying lists of individual initiatives which they considered could usefully be shared with others as examples of good practice.

Examples of national good practice

A few respondents generally highlighted work around GIRFEC (Prof Rep); and Home Starts across Scotland, providing pre-natal and post-natal support to young parents (Third) as good practice.

NHS Health Scotland identified a number of specific programmes within its organisation which it was felt could support implementation of the Strategy. An example given was the work of its Early Team, in partnership with NHS Education Scotland and Health Improvement Scotland, in developing an Antenatal Parenting Education Syllabus which it was stated could support refinement to respond to the specific needs of young parents.

Other relevant examples proposed by NHS Health Scotland included:

• The work of the Gender Based Violence programme to promote positive relationships to improve self-esteem and reduce negative impacts.
• Resources to highlight issues of smoking in pregnancy.
• Promoting the uptake of longer lasting contraception (LARC) within maternity and termination services

Examples of regional and more specific initiatives

Examples were provided of a wide range of initiatives aimed at aspects of supporting young parents, including:

Peer-led projects:

• Youth Highland Sexual Health Peer Education project .
  
  
• Young parents groups, for example, Oasis (mentioned by Dumfries and Galloway Teenage Pregnancy Working Group).
  
  
• YouthBorders work on sexual health in partnership with Health Improvement (Scottish Borders Children and Young People’s Leadership Group).
  
  
• Team Parent Mentoring Service (One Parent Families Scotland).

Projects to support vulnerable young people

• Respect ER – a 20 week relationship and sexual health programme working with vulnerable young girls (East Renfrewshire CPP).
  
  
• Aberlour Youthpoint Moray work with vulnerable young people (Moray CPP).
  
  
• Baby Steps – a peri-natal educaitonal programme for parents who find parenthood difficult due to their previous experiences (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Scotland).
  
  
• Young Parent and Child Transitional Groups – weekly group-based activities in Cumbernauld, Airdrie and Wishaw for young parents and their children who face multiple barriers and do not have the confidence to activley engage and attend local community provision (One Parent Families Scotland).

Projects to engage more effectively with young people

• Calman Trust provides support for young people to engage in consultation and serivces (The Highland Sexual Health Strategy Group on behalf of NHS Highland and Highland Council).
  
  
• Highland Children’s Forum which has regular consultations with young people; Highland Youth Parliament (The Highland Sexual Health Strategy Group on behalf of NHS Highland and Highland Council)
  
  
• Wellcome Trust funded public engagement project using creative media as well as more traditional research methods to engage with young people (https://storify.com/FeelTrack/researchandsong) (MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow).
  
  
• East Renfrewshire Youth Forum and work with young people who are members of the Scottish Youth Parliament.

Initiatives using social and text media

• Text reminder service offered to young people to remind them to attend for any unmet health needs (The Corner).
• Live updates on Twitter and Facebook regarding the relevant local authority services (Scottish Borders Children and Young People’s Leadership Group).

Initiatives involving joint work with education

• East Lothian School-Aged Parenting Project supports young people to continue with their education during pregnancy and following the birth (East Lothian Council Children's Wellbeing/ Education).
  
  
• Clinical staff support SHARE education delivered at secondary schools (Scottish Borders Children and Young People’s Leadership Group).
  
  
• Joint regional initiatives linked to schools and raising awareness of risk taking and youth issues including teenage pregnancy, for example, Willie Wonka, Big World, Do the Right Thing, The Toon (Dumfries and Galloway Teenage Pregnancy Working Group).

General support schemes

• Sexual health pop-up clinics near secondary schools during school hours (Scottish Borders Children and Young People’s Leadership Group).
  
  
• Young Parents’ Support Base in Glasgow – an integrated service providing holistic support to teenage parents (CELCIS (Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland)).
  
  
• “Love and Fertility” programme produced by Fertility Care Scotland to give young people information and postive values towards sexuality (Fertility Care Scotland).
  
  
• Home visiting programmes such as Minding the Baby and the Glasgow Infant and Family Team (NSPCC).
  
  
• Little Bumps – a 20 week prenatal support programme for young parents, co-delivered with community maternity services; Baby Love – a 12 week postnatal group to support young first time parents (East Renfrewshire CPP).

Schemes aimed at looked-after young parents

• Listen to Us; Looked After Champions Board (Dumfries and Galloway Teenage Pregnancy Working Group).
  
  
• Through Care & After Care Health & Wellbeing Programme developed after consultation with young people and support staff. The aim of the program is to introduce, inform and support young people and support staff to national and local services, to increase baseline knowledge, understanding and confidence, on how to access services (Moray CPP).
  
  
• The Spark delivers services to young parents including those currently or previously ‘Looked After’).

Examples of other initiatives identified

• Barnardo’s runs a ‘Five to Thrive’ programme with young dads in HMYOI Polmont, as well as with adult fathers in HMP Perth. Early Years Scotland also works with adult dads to increase their confidence in parenting, namely at HMPs Dumfries, Grampian, and Low Moss. The Families Outside prison visitors’ centre supports two programmes for fathers of young children at HMP Addiewell, namely the In Tune project with Vox Liminus (music workshops for families) and supporting the work of Dads Rock (Families Outside).
  
  
• Brook Scotland’s “All Different, All Beautiful” aimed at increasing young people’s confidence and self esteem (The Highland Sexual Health Strategy Group on behalf of NHS Highland and Highland Council).
  
  
• Sexual Behaviours Traffic Light Tool which supports professionals working with children and young people by helping them to identify and respond appropriately to sexual behaviour. British Association for Sexual Health and HIV and Brook have launched a new child sexual exploitation (CSE) proforma, Spotting the Signs, to help health professionals across the UK identify young people attending sexual health services who may be at risk of or experiencing sexual exploitation; Brook and the Department of Health have jointly developed an online e-learning tool to help health professionals spot the signs of child sexual exploitation; Combating CSE: an e-learning resource for healthcare professionals has been designed for use by all staff in healthcare settings – from doctors and nurses to receptionists, paramedics, and pharmacists. Developed by Brook and funded by the Department of Health, the tool is designed to help healthcare staff in preventing, identifying and responding to child sexual exploitation http://www.brook.org.uk/our-work/cse-e-learning-tool (Brook Scotland).
  
  
• Multi-agency events in West Lothian, East Lothian and North East Edinburgh have been held to share evidence and good practice and have involved young parents talking about their experiences (NHS Lothian).