News
Barking & Dagenham
We are very privileged to work with an excellent Teenage Pregnancy Team in Barking & Dagenham who have been working very hard to reduce their very high rates of teenage pregnancy. Straight Talking's programme is an element of the work achieved in the borough and by working together the rates have reduced by 12%.
Young Parents Achieving
A recent audit has shown that 95% of young parents employed by the charity have moved forward into education, employment and training.
President of Straight Talking
We are proud to announce that Baroness Joyce Gould has agreed to become our President. Two of our young parents were invited to join Baroness Gould at the House of Lords for tea to discuss the charity's work. Baroness Gould is a life peer in the House of Lords. She is Chair of the Government’s Independent Advisory Group for Sexual Health and HIV, making her one of the top health policy-makers in the country.
Baroness Gould says;
From the very outset, I was impressed with Straight Talking’s approach and unswerving dedication to the welfare of disengaged young people. What a marvellous way to both prevent teenage pregnancy and support teenage parents back into education and training. I wholeheartedly recommend their programme to any professional concerned with improving the life chances of hard-to-reach young people.
Baroness Gould, Jasmine and Jade at the House of Lords
Text messaging project
Straight Talking is exploring the use of text messaging to give young people an understanding of parenting in ‘real time’. We are currently piloting a scheme in 2 schools. Pupils will receive numerous text messages over a 10 hour period to simulate the relentless responsibilities of parenting. The scheme is already being developed to incorporate further learning.
Partnership with the National Childbirth Trust
Straight Talking is proud to be working in partnership with the National Childbirth Trust. Our young mothers are now working towards a qualification to enable them to become ante natal teachers. The National Childbirth Trust is supporting the young mothers to study at home. Once qualified, they will be able to deliver classes to pregnant teenagers who are not accessing mainstream services. Superhighways at Kingston Voluntary Action, have provided computers for the young mothers.
European Partners
The charity has received Socrates funding to participate in a European partnership. Our partners include organisations in Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland and Lithuania. In October 2005 we met in Cochem in Germany to discuss our work in motivating young parents. We continued our work by hosting the group here in London last May and in October 2006, we regrouped in Poland. We are learning a great deal from other cultures and practices and this has impacted on our work. We took two young parents with us to Warsaw, Poland and we were delighted with their level of participation. By including the young parents, we are giving them a voice and believe that this is of vital importance. Young parents are the experts on teenage parenthood and Straight Talking strongly believes in acknowledging their experience. We look forward to our next trip to Lithuania in June 2007.
To see our combined website, please click on the following link;
Web site addresses of our European partners are as follows;