Research - Youth Support Jamaica and the Women’s Centres of Jamaica Foundation.

The Women’s centres (now known as the Women’s Centre of Jamaica Foundation) have been operating in Jamaica since 1978 and have built up a wealth of information and experience in the subject of teenage pregnancy and adolescent sexuality. They have had unrivalled experience of advising, teaching and supporting young parents and their success rate has been excellent.  

The last tracer study of the centre attenders was undertaken in 1995 at the 15 / 17 year follow up stage and rendered interesting results which were also useful in planning further work .  At the same time Youth Support in London were producing their 15 year follow up study of a comparable population.

The two organisations have been associated for the past 16 years and Dr Birch from Youth Support has been visiting The Women’s centres since 1986.

We now have a unique opportunity to follow up the young parents at the 20 year stage and conduct a comparative study of both populations. Thanks to the interest of a International Charities – Youth Support and the ICCYFS (International Centre for Child Youth and Family Studies) – it is now possible to undertake this important piece of work and it is hoped that data from a third site in Los Angeles will also eventually be included.