Play it Safe: Teenage Pregnancy Project for the NHS South East - Page 1 of 7

Introduction

Initiated by the NHS South East and in collaboration with The Arts Agency, 'Play it Safe' is a project aimed at helping to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies in Britain. Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe and America is the only other country to have a higher teenage pregnancy rate in the world. This project is an attempt to help fulfill the governments initiative to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies in Britain by 2010.

Through the Arts Agency, the NHS had been given funding to employ a digital artist to construct a CD-ROM and/or web site aimed at 14-16 year old boys from under privileged backgrounds. Research has shown that too much emphasis has been placed on educating young women about how serious the nature of teenage pregnancy is. It is therefore necessary to make sure that a similar message reaches young men in order to encourage them to take an active role in the prevention of unwanted pregnancies.

It was mentioned in the brief how the services regarding teenage pregnancy have been designed primarily for women, by women. This is why the focus has needed to change to accommodate men and boys. This is indeed a new field of research which, as a consequence is unpredictable in terms of its effectiveness at this stage.

The research for the project was gathered by engaging with a variety of youth groups with disaffected young men around the south east in order to gain progressive feedback in conjunction with the projects evolution. At various stages in its development the work was also shown to a panel of NHS sexual health workers and regional managers in order to gain further feed back.