Project notes: Wigan Care To Learn scheme

Goals: To boost the take-up of Care To Learn payments by teenage parents to enable them to get back into education and employment

Funding: Supported by a range of organisations and budgets including Connexions and the Learning and Skills Council

The take-up of Care To Learn, a government initiative that helps young parents under 19 to attend school or college, has been boosted in Wigan because of the work of the local Sure Start programme, in conjunction with the Teenage Pregnancy Team, Connexions and local colleges.

At the start of the initiative in January this year, take-up of Care To Learn, which provides young parents with 145 per week per child to be spent on childcare, had been low in Wigan. There were just seven young parents on the scheme, says Stephanie Shorrocks, Care To Learn development worker at Wigan Sure Start. But take-up has now risen to 60 or 70 young mums attending local colleges since September.