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Camden New Journal - by RICHARD OSLEY
Published: 13 September 2007

Tory wants action on ‘estates’ teenage mums’

AN outspoken backbench councillor has called on the Town Hall to send teenage pregnancy teams on to council estates to target “high-risk girls”.
Gospel Oak Conservative Keith Sedgwick said that it was obvious that there was a link between council housing and the rate of teenage pregnancies and, therefore, Camden should be more targeted in its response.
He said on Monday: “We should go to the estates and put the message through the front door. The trouble is that we have a liberal sensitivity and people don’t want to admit it, but seeing as we know that there is a direct link then we should use that knowledge.”
Cllr Sedgwick said that pregnancy advice being pumped out through schools was not reaching those who needed it because girls most likely to fall pregnant in their teenage years were often the ones that played truant.
“The message isn’t getting through to them because they aren’t there,” he said. “The high-risk groups are often in social housing. These are the teenage girls with low self-esteem who feel they have to validate themselves by having sex.
“These are the girls that we need to reach. We need more activities and advice for them to raise their understanding.”
The issue was raised during a debate over children’s social services offered by the Town Hall.
Lib Dem councillor John Bryant, who holds the children’s portfolio at the Town Hall, said: “The labelling here is wrong. You can’t just label council estate tenants as all the same. The initiatives that we have tried are working and the rate of teenage pregnancy is going down, not up.”
He added that girls who were missing from school were checked up by welfare officers.

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