YWCA England & Wales

what we do

Health and wellbeing

Young women are taking serious risks with their health and wellbeing through alcohol abuse, bad diets and poor sexual health. Girls need better education and support to help them make informed, healthy choices.

Alcohol abuse

The average weekly alcohol consumption for 11-to 15-year-olds has increased from five units in 1990 to more than eleven units in 2006. There has been an increase in drinking to get drunk.

Abuse, alcohol or drug use in the family, failure at school, peer pressure and stress are all factors that cause young women to abuse alcohol. Alcohol causes women to take risks with their personal safety.

Sexual health

Young women in England and Wales are more likely to have poor sexual health than their European counterparts and rates of teenage pregnancies are the highest in Western Europe.

Young women tell us that the sex education they get in school is too scientific, is too little, too late and doesn't deal with the realities of relationships.

Many young women get their information about sex from friends, family and the media. As a result, many hold inaccurate beliefs about safe sex.

Healthy living

Healthy eating in schools has been high on the political agenda for some time, but school doesn’t work for everyone. Those girls who miss out on school miss learning about healthy eating.

Young women on a budget find it difficult to eat healthily. In deprived and rural areas it can be difficult to find greengrocers.

In deprived areas there is often nowhere safe to exercise. For some young women, especially those from black or ethnic minority backgrounds, exercise is only acceptable in women-only spaces. These can be hard to find.

What YWCA is doing

YWCA offers programmes that develop young women’s self-confidence and skills. As a young woman’s confidence and self-esteem grows, so will her sense of worth.

We educate young women about the dangers of binge drinking and how this can affect their futures.

We offer practical sexual health support like bringing nurses into young women’s groups, condom distribution and pregnancy and chlamydia testing.

YWCA offers cooking and healthy eating courses for young women on a budget. We support young mums through addressing what they and their children eat and how they get exercise.

To read more about young women's health and wellbeing and what we are doing about it read our briefings and information sheets.