After 10 years of working to reduce teenage pregnancy in Leicestershire and Rutland the LRCSSP is being cut severely. The 2 development worker posts have been cut from the end of March, leaving just the coordinator, and the shape of the project is yet to be decided, but may end up with just a trainer post training what will be un-supported practitioners in the community. This project carries out 10000 safer *** interventions a year, with 2000 new service users across over 100 community based sites county-wide. 48 percent of users are male - an incredible achievement. It is possible that with no central coordination practice will reduce in quality and young people will drift away and consequently not access sexual health services at all. The rates of teenage pregnancy in the county have just started to show a sharp drop after 10 years hard work by the partnership. The LRCSSP constituted a third of the budget, so was a considerable contributor to this work. Major partners are also being cut (eg the county's youth service and connexions), and the capacity to find new partners will just not be there. The project also runs an innovative texting service which has, in the past year, with new branding, proven increasingly popular and useful to young people needing help and support on relationships and sexual health issues. The future of this service is also now under threat. The project is trying to find alternative funding and ways of working but time is running out.
From Voluntarysectorcuts.org.uk - please click to view more.....
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