News

Teenage parents aged under 16 should be entitled to the same benefits for their children as any other parents, according to the independent advisory group on teenage pregnancy, writes Sally Gillen.

Reforming the benefits system is one of 49 recommendations made by the group in its first annual report.

The group, which is made up of 28 members drawn from a range of professional fields including housing, health and education, was set up last year to advise on the government’s teenage pregnancy strategy.

The strategy, developed by the teenage pregnancy unit, sets out a 30-point plan to improve prevention and halve the teenage pregnancy rate by 2010, and to provide better support to teenage parents.

Gill Frances, director of children’s personal development at the National Children’s Bureau, who is a member of the group, said: "Teenage parents under 16 do not get enough money to live on, which means that the benefits system holds them in a vulnerable position. Under 16s should be able to claim the same amount of money as any other parent."

The report sets out 11 key recommendations. Half of them focus on prevention, half on supporting teenage parents. The former includes looked after children, who are at disproportionate risk of becoming teenage parents. Some 25 per cent of care leavers have had a child by the age of 16, says the report.

Jill Varndell, another IAG member, commented: "Local authorities do not have to collate information on the number of looked after children who become pregnant which, as corporate parents, they should be doing. The government should make it a performance indicator."

The report calls on the government to offer greater support to teenage parents with education, housing and benefits.

Since 1997 the number of teenage parents who have stayed in education, training or employment, has risen from 16 to 31 per cent.

But the social exclusion unit’s teenage pregnancy strategy highlighted education, training and employment as key to preventing teenage parents from being socially excluded. The IAG’s report identifies lack of child care provision as a major obstacle to returning to education, and recommends that the government should set up a national strategy to ensure that all teenage parents seeking to return to education have access to affordable child care.

To read the full report click here and then look under 'latest news' and 'IAG publications'.