TeenBoundaries UK, the UK's leading anti-sexual bullying charity, has merged with parenting advice and support charity, Family Lives.
Jeremy Todd, Family Lives Chief Executive said:
“This is great news for Family Lives. Our helpline receives calls from families concerned about all aspects of teenage relationships and as a charity, we strongly believe that merging our skills, knowledge and experience will enable us to further support families when dealing with such an important and emotive issues such as building strong teenage relationships and avoiding abuse. Leonie Hodge is a welcome addition to the team and will no doubt enable us to further improve our support services to families throughout the UK.”
Leonie Hodge said: “TeenBoundaries UK perfectly matches Family Lives’ commitment to being an inclusive service provider accessible to all families. This partnership will enable us to find new and inventive ways of engaging with families with the view to increasing community cohesion, mental health and well-being for young people as well as their respective family units. TeenBoundaries UK core services will continue with the extra support of the nationwide Family Lives team, which will enable us to improve the services we provide.”
Between April 2010 and March 2011, Family Lives’ free helpline received 40,081long calls of which 1,226 calls concerned children sexual behaviour. This amounts to 3% of all long calls to our helpline.
Family Lives found that:
Out of 1,226 calls:
- 38% of calls revolve around general sexual behaviour issues
- 32% of calls revolve around underage sex. In overall, most issues relate to 13-15 year olds
- 66 calls resulted in unlawfully sexual behaviour, for which further action needed to be taken
Parents concerned about their children’s sexual behaviour can visit www.familylives.org.uk, call the free Family Lives helpline on 0808 800 2222, or email parentsupport@familylivess.org.uk for a personalised reply within 3 days.
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For interviews and media enquiries please contact: Simon Walsh, Family Lives Press & PR Manager on 020 7553 3094 or email simonwfamilylives.org.uk
Notes to editors:
1: TeenBoundaries UK’s co-founder, Leonie Hodge will become part of the Family Lives Business Development Team.
Family Lives is a national charity that works for, and with, parents. We encourage parents to see that asking for help is a sign of strength, and work with them to offer practical solutions and suggestions to manage their particular situations and difficulties. We deliver this support through an innovative range of free, flexible, responsive services - shaped by parents for parents.
2: Family Lives offers:
- A free online chat service
- A free confidential, Parentline 0808 800 2222*
- Email support parentsupport@familylivess.org.uk
- Parenting groups and workshops
- A helpful, interactive website for parents www.familylives.org.uk
- Volunteer opportunities
3: More information on TeenBoundaries UK.
TeenBoundariesUK began as the only charity solely devoted to stopping sexual bullying and encouraging positive gender relationships.
TeenBoundariesUK aims to support schools and community groups in delivering high quality PSHE and SRE.
Main goals include:
- Raise awareness of the dangers of unhealthy and exploitative relationships
- Advise teens of the dangers of being involved in inappropriate or coercive relationships and sexual activity
- Increase understanding of a persons’ rights to be protected from all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse
- Increase confidence to report exploitation and abuse
- Develop understanding of how unwanted pressure to have sex can lead to more dangerous and exploitative situations
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