Positive Relationships: Teenage Parents - Showing the way

Being a teenage parent can be a bewildering and lonely experience. The Young People's Project in Ilford, Essex, aims to support vulnerable young mothers and fathers by helping them gain basic skills, access training programmes and develop parenting prowess. Central to the project is a 20- place day nursery.

The project's chief executive, Rosie Payne, says, 'Sixty per cent of the teenage mothers have not finished mainstream education. They want to have the support and opportunities to progress, and we aim to empower them to do so. The nursery is core to this, because they can't access training without childcare, and the nursery staff also help with parenting skills.'

The Young People's Project is a not-for-profit company that supports 16-to 19-year-olds. 'The needs of the teenage parents are what guide the services we provide,' says Ms Payne. Accredited courses range from maths and ICT to interview skills and budgeting. Expectant parents can attend antenatal classes, and weekly drop-in sessions help them to make friends with other young parents.

Nursery staff act as mentors to the teenagers, encouraging them to volunteer in the nursery to enhance their parenting skills. Some mothers have gone on to study NVQs in childcare.

Strategic nursery manager Karen Macleod says, 'We bring the parents into the nursery and do lots of modelling on good practice. The staff are all mothers. My one-year-old is in the nursery and the nursery deputy was a teenage mother herself. She has a fantastic way of liaising with the mums because she speaks their language and can truly empathise. This breaks down barriers.

'Many of the girls do not have good home backgrounds and have been in care, the crux of many of the issues. They have limited experience of good parenting. We have to tell them their baby must come first now, not new clothes or friends. We show how to develop a routine and how important it is for a young child to have continuity.'

Some children attend the nursery for only one or two sessions a week, so staff work hard to help them to settle and to gain parents' trust. 'There has been a lot of organisation of the curriculum and planning and record-keeping so that we can best support the children as well as the parents,' Ms Macleod says.

Many of the young mothers achieved little at school, but they often have high expectations for their babies and want to hurry them along. 'We explain child development in a practical way and model such things as how to read a book with their child. We explain why we are doing the activities, such as sand and water play, and how it is aiding their child's development,' says Ms Macleod.

She says there is a strong focus on healthy eating in the nursery, including weekly parents' sessions, which will culminate in producing a cookery book. 'Previously mothers would give an 11-month-old a sausage roll for lunch. We run weaning classes and show how to puree food and how it is cheaper than buying jars of baby food.

'We aim for showing by example rather than lecturing. It is a softly, softly approach.'

CASE STUDY: THE DEPUTY MANAGER

Deputy nursery manager Ebony Chambers was 17 when she became pregnant. She had moved out of home and had no family to support her and her daughter, Unique, who is now four years old.

'The Project really helped me,' she says. 'My mind was all over the place when I got pregnant and I didn't know what I would do. I had always wanted to work with children but thought it'd be years before I would be able to do that because I couldn't afford childcare.

'Unique was cared for at the Project's nursery while I gained my NVQ 2 and 3. I volunteered for a year in the nursery myself and then became employed there. I am working towards my NVQ 4 and hope to open a nursery of my own one day.

'The teenage mothers see me and know that it is possible to achieve and get where you want to be, even when you've got a young child.'

Further information: www.young peoplesproject.com.