Nurses trained as life coaches for teenage mothers

TEENAGE mothers are to be given their own personal nurses to act as mentors for up three years advising them on everything from breast feeding to keeping their boyfriend.

A new class of family nurse, earning up to £40,000 a year, is to be trained to offer relationship and family planning advice and even career support to 16,000 teenage parents from deprived backgrounds.

They will combine elements of the role currently served by community midwives and health visitors with more specialist one-on-one advice ranging from teaching them how to cook for their children to helping them give up smoking and drugs.

The Government hopes that the £17.5 million project will prevent child abuse and domestic violence and reduce the chances of babies themselves growing up to become troubled youths.

It is based on a scheme in the US which, according to studies, had a dramatic impact on the levels of child abuse and crime.

Following a pilot scheme, the “Family Nurse Partnership” is to be almost doubled in size with almost 1,000 specialist nurses.

It comes after the NHS’s prescribing body the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) announced that more than a million parents of children with behavioural problems should be offered state-funded parenting classes.

Dr Dan Poulter, the health minister, said would-be mothers and – if possible – fathers would be offered specialist help as soon the pregnancy was registered in an effort to prevent problems later on.

“It is about helping mothers and fathers understand what pregnancy and childbearing is going to be about and supporting young couples with some very basic stuff such as setting up home together and helping them understand what it is going to be like to be parents,” he said.

He said there would be a deliberate emphasis on encouraging them to stay together if possible, reducing the prospect of the girl going on to have multiple children with multiple fathers.

But he rejected the idea that the scheme amounted to “nanny state” intervention.

“Some people will say we are you investing in his,” he said.

“There is a very compelling human case but the economic case stacks up in its own right. However you look at it is a win-win situation.

He added: “I think when you drill down into the evidence, whatever we would like to believe that the world should be like there are families that have difficulties, who run into trouble and teenage parents are a group who are particularly vulnerable.

“It is not about arguing about whether it is right or wrong that there are teenage families, we have got to make sure we can do the best we can by those families to give those children the best start in life but also recognising that if we don’t then the burden on the NHS on social services and on employment is going to be much higher.

Research in the US suggested that a similar scheme almost halved the incidence of child abuse, cut A&E attendances and convictions involving young mothers.