Findings of Annual Bullying Survey 2015 Announced

Charity Ditch the Label have announced the findings of their Annual Bullying Survey foir 2015.

The survey of 3,600 young people in the UK between the ages of 13-18 revealed that:

• 51% of young people have been bullied because of their appearance
• 26% of young people have been bullied because of their weight
• 13% of teens have been bullied by a teacher

Commenting on the findings from Ditch the Label's report, Sue Minto Head of ChildLine said:

"These figures are shocking and correlate with what we are hearing from young people here at ChildLine. In 2013/2014 we held over 5,000 counselling sessions with young people who spoke about body image issues - the majority of which took place with girls.

"Young people told us that bullying, name-calling and being victimised about weight often led to them developing body image issues – and sadly they strongly believed that by changing their body it would result in them being socially accepted."

You can read more about Ditch the Label's Annual Bullying Survey here: http://www.ditchthelabel.org/annual-bullying-survey-2015/

Teenage Pregnancies Have Hit a Record Low

Office for National Statistics data shows that the number of teenage pregnancies in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level since 1969 when records began.

The data shows that the under 18 conception rate is now 24.5 per thousand women compared with 27.9 per thousand the year before.

This is a drop of 13% on the previous year. Pregnancies in under-16s also fell.

At the same time the conception rate among women over 35 has been rising.

Teenage Runaways Lack Safe Places To Go

Research suggests that only a tiny fraction of the 100,000 UK under 16s who run away yearly are given emergency shelter by councils.

Nearly two-thirds of the 210 English, Welsh and Scottish councils who responded to the Railway Children charity survey offered no under-16s accommodation in the past year. The research found just 157 children were offered this sort of support.

Council leaders acknowledged a shortage of emergency accommodation. However, only about half the local authorities kept figures on how many times such emergency accommodation was used, the study said.

The research was prompted by growing concern about runaway children. It highlighted how all refuges but one for young children had closed by this year.

"Inconsistent use of local authority emergency accommodation was leaving young people without a safe place at the time they need it most," it said.

More on this story and the full report is available from the Railway Children Charity here.

Support For Teens In Care A 'National Scandal'

Children's Minister, Edward Timpson has said that too many teenagers in England leave care without enough support, ending up in a "trap of poverty and joblessness".

Mr Timpson said it was a "national scandal" and urged councils to do more to make sure they have a "solid start". He wants such teenagers to be given higher allowances towards setting up home and more foster placements. The Local Government Association says councils should not face new financial expectations at a time of drastic cuts.

Mr Timpson's comments come as figures suggest many 16-year-olds leaving care are not in education, work or training by age 19. According to the figures cited by Mr Timpson, more than a third (35%) of children in care leave by the age 16 and, of those, 45% will not be in education, employment or training - so-called Neets - three years later.

Mr Timpson said the "cliff-edge" of leaving care was often too sudden and poorly planned, with many teenagers finding the move "traumatic".

You can read more on this story on the BBC News website here.

Obese Teens - Should The State Do More?

Sunday Times columnist Minette Marrin says social services "should have stepped in years ago" to help obese teenager, Georgia Davis. She wonders why Georgia was put on the at-risk register "when that risk wasn't dealt with".

"There is a clear picture of a child in terrible need of help long before you describe her as a grown-up teenager", she told the Today programme's Sarah Montague. 

63 stone Welsh teenager, Georgia, became so overweight that she needed to be cut free from her house after collapsing with breathing problems.

You can listen to the discussion of this issue on the Today programme here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9724000/9724325.stm

British Teenagers Among The Worst For Sex & Drinking

Research published in the Lancet Series on Adolescent Health suggests that British teenagers are among the world’s worst for binge drinking and underage sex. In a league table of 40 mostly high-income countries, England had the fourth highest percentage of young people who have been drunk by the age of 13, with Wales fifth and Scotland eighth. Britain also had the third highest rate of sexual activity among 13 to 15-year-old girls in the study of 17 Western European nations, with 32 per cent saying they were sexually active. The two studies used figures for 2006, the most recent year of international comparable data. The research suggest that the wellbeing of teenagers has improved far less over the past 50 years than that of children under 10.

You can read the research here: http://www.thelancet.com/series/adolescent-health-2012