Many readers will remember how the original TV series Baby Borrowers got both the Daily Mail and charities such as Kidscape hot under the collar after putting five teenage couples aged between 16 and 19 into a social experiment. The young people were given responsibility for running a household and looking after other people's children while holding down jobs and maintaining a relationship.

Some saw this as irresponsible, despite the fact that the young children's parents were nearby along with trained childcare professionals. The National Youth Agency's Youth Work for Health team felt this was an unnecessary risk for TV, even though it recognised that many young people are often given childcare and babysitting responsibility with far less supervision.

Given that, it's still good to report that the BBC has followed up the series by producing special packs for teachers and youth workers. The youth workers' pack includes four 20-minute DVDs, which present an overview of the experiment, look at the relationships between the couples and parenting, and focus on one couple, Carl and Kayleigh. They are well-paced and structured and, as you would expect from the BBC, have very high-production values - though it should be noted that there is quite a lot of repetition and overlap.

Each film is accompanied by a synopsis and session plans that identify learning outcomes and provide opening activities, development activities and reflection and review activities.

Resources include observational quiz sheets for young people to use while they view the programmes, press cuttings that highlight the issues prompted by the show's controversy, discussion cards, health and safety guidance for babies and toddlers and role-play scenarios.

These resources offer useful and well-planned outlines for work with young people in non-formal education situations and will enable skilled workers to run some very thought-provoking sessions.

There are obvious concerns for youth workers regarding the material but young people are honestly portrayed throughout the films and actually come out of it with credit for the humour and concern they display for children and for each other. The close-up observation of relationships will be useful material for any worker wanting to reinforce the importance of caring and respectful mutual behaviour as a prerequisite of happy living.

The four DVDs also offer a real-life version of the 'baby think it over' message, which aims to encourage young people to think twice about the consequences of having sex.

Individuals and couples in the series also repeatedly stress the difficulty of the job they have taken on and how they have learned the importance of sorting out career and relationship issues before taking on the responsibility of starting a family.

Despite our problems with the advisability of the original experiment, we like the quality, style and ambition of this pack. It could play an important role in helping young people to develop skills, knowledge and confidence.