Call for better support for teenagers 'locked in' vulnerable homes during the pandemic

Girls Out Loud provides mentoring and counselling services to teenage girls in Greater Manchester and Cheshire.
Girls Out Loud provides mentoring and counselling services to teenage girls in Greater Manchester and Cheshire. Credit: Press Association

A Manchester organisation which supports vulnerable teenage girls says it desperately needs to get back into schools. 

Girls Out Loud provides mentoring and counselling services to teenage girls in Greater Manchester and Cheshire.

But the pandemic has restricted face to face support and limited fundraising.

Jane Kenyon, the founder of Girls Out Loud, said some children are being denied help because schools are worried about having external visitors and advisors on site.

Jane said that even before the pandemic the mental health of teenage girls was a concern, and since the virus took hold issues have increased.

She said: "Because of being ten months into the situation we're in now, and the girls being locked out of school, some of those girls are locked in to very unsafe environments.

"So we all think they're home safe, it's not the case for a lot of girls."