Teenage Pregnancy Research Report - 3p Consulting

mother for a short while. Penny moved again to a unitwhen Evan was 13 months old and has been there eversince.to watch him develop she says. She has come tobelieve that children deserve to have high quality careand this is the direction she wants to work in.Penny is clear about the direction she wants her life totake and returned to study at Hair and Beauty Schoolwhen Evan was 12 months old to continue gainingqualifications. However in the last 6 months she hasdecided to change to Child Care Studies. Being a parentto Evan has been difficult, but has also been fascinatingLiterature review -Teenage ParentingParenting at any age can present a series of challengesbut becoming a teenage parent can be particularlydifficult while developing into adulthood and when livingin a social context where the average age of most firsttime mothers is 28.9 years. 1Responses to teenage parenthood in westernindustrialised countries is framed by policies that assumeteen parenting is a result of ignorance and helplessness onthe part of young people, even though it is not necessarilyclear whether it is age per se or life circumstances thatare associated with the relatively poor outcomes ofteenage mothers and their children. 2 The paradigm ofteenage parents as a welfare issue plays out in practicein two key ways. Firstly, teen parents feel disengaged andstigmatised by their community, and secondly there is agulf between the actual experiences of teenage parentsand policy and program responses.A strong theme emerging from recent research,particularly the United Kingdom, is how positive andcentral their children are to the lives of young parentsand that for many young parents their baby increasedtheir happiness, being young was seen as a benefit fortheir children and becoming a parent provided impetusto change direction and focus on providing for theirchildren. 3 In contrast to teens’ positive experience aboutbeing a parent, policy is often focused on how to preventteenagers becoming parents in the first place and to reengagethem in institutions and services that often do notacknowledge their parenthood and/or where “childrenare seen as obstacles”. 4Impact of socio-economiccircumstancesAs established earlier, statistically young people fromlower socio-economic backgrounds are at higher risk ofbeing teenage parents and the accompanying impactsof intergenerational poverty and lack of opportunitiesfor education and employment follow young peoplefrom pregnancy into parenting. Potential poor long-termoutcomes for teenage parents and their children areindistinguishable from the poor outcomes that are moregenerally related to poverty and as such teen parentsare more likely than their older counterparts to havepoor mental health, poor housing, and low educationalattainment. 5So, while satisfaction and pride about being a parentis often the impetus for many to contemplate changingtheir life and circumstances, entrenched issues relatedto intergenerational poverty mean that interventionsattempting to address some issues, such as reengagementwith education and training, psychosocialwellbeing, drug and alcohol misuse and poor mental healthand self-esteem are often evaluated as unsuccessful.In contrast, targeted services that provide practical help,support and advocacy to teen parents when accessingappropriate housing and financial benefits are assessedby both young parents and service providers as importantand useful and able to positively affect change. 6However, while teen parents are in general positive aboutparenthood, in addition to the new task of mothering,issues that were present during pregnancy often continueto be apparent during parenting and the support neededto deal with these issues depends on socio-economicstatus, individual circumstances and skills and to acertain extent, the mother’s age.78