Facts and Figures
UK Youth
- UK Youth is the leading youth work charity in the UK supporting over 750,000 young people (14 to 25), 40,000 volunteers and part-time youth workers and 7,000 youth clubs, youth groups and projects.
- It is the largest non-uniformed National Voluntary Youth Organisation in the UK with a network comprising 41 local member groups in England representing the major county and metropolitan areas and the National Members- Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
- A total approximately 7000 local youth groups, clubs and projects affiliated to the local member groups.
- UK Youth has a high reputation within Government Departments and has twice been in receipt of lottery funding in the £1,000,000 bracket.
Young People population in the UK
- 11.6 million young people aged under 16
- 13 million young people under the age of 18
- 5.5 million young people aged between 13 and 19
Sources: http://www.nya.org.uk (2004)
Teenage Pregnancies
- Young women from a manual social background are four times as likely to become pregnant than those from a non-manual background.
- Each year 40,000 under 18 year olds in England became pregnant
- 8,000 of these conceptions are to under 16s
- England has the worst record for teenage pregnancies in Europe – the teenage birth rates are twice as high as Germany, three times as high as France and six times as high as the Netherlands.
Source www.nhs.co.uk
Drugs
- In 20004/05, 15 per cent of boys aged 11 to 15 years used drugs in the last year compared with 13 per cent of girls, and 31 per cent of males aged 16 to 19 years used drugs in the last year compared with 24 per cent of females in the same age group.
- In 2004/05, young people (those aged 16 to 24). 33 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women in England and Wales taken an illicit drug in the previous year.
- The most commonly used drug by young people was cannabis, which had been used by 30 per cent of young men and 18 per cent of young women in the previous year.
- Cocaine and ecstasy were the most commonly used Class A drugs In 2004/05, 7 per cent of men and 3 per cent of women aged 16 to 24 had used cocaine in the previous year, and the same proportions reported use of ecstasy in the past year.
- Since 1998 there has been an increase in the use of cocaine among young people. In contrast the use of cannabis, amphetamines and LSD has declined.
Source:British Crime Survey 2004/05,
Homelessness
- Between 36,000 to 52,000 young people are estimated to have been ‘found homeless’
- by local authorities in England in 2003
- It can be estimated that 1 in 8 of those homeless young people (up to 6,700) may have
- recent experience of rough sleeping
- In 2004 9% (10,930) of those accepted as statutory homeless and in priority need by
- Local Authorities in England was due to them being a ‘Young Person’
- It is likely that several thousand young people experience homelessness without having
- any contact with local authorities in England each year
Sources (Centrepoint homelessness Youth Index, 2004)
Crime
- Young people made up nearly 20 per cent of all people in custody in 1994
- Almost 75 per cent of young offenders (under 21 years old) were reconvicted within two years. Twelve and a half percent were reconvicted within 3 months.
Sources (TES, 9 June 2006)
School leavers
- 30,000 young people leaving school with no qualifications each year
- Being thrown out of school is a key 'trigger' leading to homelessness. Children who have been excluded from school are 90 times more likely to tend up living on the streets than those who stay on and pass exams. More than a quarter of all those living rough had been excluded from school and 62% had no educational qualifications.
- A tenth of 16-year-olds left school in 2005 with poor literacy or numeracy skills. Official figures show that about 60,000 16-year-olds did not pass GCSE English or maths. And one in 20, almost 32,000 teenagers, failed to gain a GCSE in both subjects.
(Centrepoint Youth Homelessness Index, 2004)
