Cumbria has turned the corner in its fight to reduce teenage conception rates, says the county's Risk Taking Behaviour Partnership Board.
The board includes representatives from Connexions, the county council, district councils, Cumbria PCT, the Police and Probation Services. It is part of Cumbria's Children's Trust.
Statistics release by the Office of National Statistic yesterday (Thursday 28 February) show that the number of teenage women in Cumbria becoming pregnant has dropped significantly in the space of a year.
A new teenage pregnancy strategy for the county was introduced in 2005. The statistics for 2006 show that in Cumbria 35.3 in every thousand 15-17 year old girls had conceived compared to 39.8 girls in 2005.
According to these statistics, Cumbria now has the fourth lowest rate for teenage pregnancy in the whole of the North West region, and represents a reduction of just under 16 per cent.
However, the Partnership Board knows that there is still much to be done as high rates continue in some areas of Allerdale, Copeland and Carlisle and these will continue to be a priority.
Teenage Pregnancy coordinator Fran Frankland is optimistic about the rates continuing to decrease in the future. She said:
"Cumbria has some excellent, nationally recognised examples of good practice on reducing teenage pregnancies and supporting teenage parents.
"Over the past two years there has been a drive to reshape Cumbria's teenage pregnancy strategy and we now have strong foundations from which we can achieve further progress.
"The improvements have come about through focused efforts from the Partnership."
Those improvements include delivering a prevention education programme in communities of high teenage pregnancy rates, a free, confidential condom distribution scheme, and a continued commitment to provide good quality sex and relationships education in schools.
Cumbria is also taking part in two regional pilots looking at improving personal, social and educational education in schools, and improving sexual health services for young people in the county.
For more information on sexual health young people can contact http://www.ruthinking.co.uk/ (external link) or phone R U Thinking on 0800 28 29 30.