INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — If you are a busy teenager, you have lots of fun things going on in your life right now, and a lot more to plan for your future. Maybe you want to be a mom someday – or maybe you don’t – either way, it is important for you to be thinking about your goals for school, for your job or career, and for other important things in your life.
Then, think about how having children fits in with those goals.
The IRC Healthy Start Coalition has counselors and coordinators who will educate teens and, if pregnant, we offer more services to them and their families that will help them all through the process and the first three years of the baby’s life.
Some facts about how pregnancy can change a teenager’s life:
* 56% of teen mothers in one study wanted to go to college, but they lacked the resources to make it a reality.
* 75% of unmarried teen mothers go on welfare within 5 years of the birth of their first child.
* 64% of children born to an unmarried teenage high-school dropout live in poverty.
* Did you know….One in two teenage moms never complete high school and earn an average of $9,000 less than people who finish high school and don’t attend college.
* Teen mothers are seven times more likely to commit suicide than non-mothers?
The rates of teenage pregnancy have declined since 2008 in the US and the State of Florida. Indian River County has also seen a decline in teenage pregnancy but at a slower rate. Births to 15-17 ages are 15.1 per 1,000 births as compared to Florida 12.0 per 1,000.
We still need to reach more young people, earlier on, with the active presence of parents and positive role models in their lives talking more to their kids about sex, pregnancy and STDs.
Many teens preferred going to our older siblings or friends rather than to our well-meaning parents or a medical professional. The strength of peer influence abounds in our own homes and across popular culture. To effectively encourage teens to make the right decisions about sex, their relationships, and their health, we need more teen-to-teen education. Teens can connect with those hard-to-reach teens who refuse to take direction from the adults in their lives whom they have come to dismiss as patronizing or clueless.
At the end of the day, all that matters is that teens not only have access to the information and health services that can help them prevent unintended pregnancy, as well as not feeling judged or “uncool” when they do access these services.
The Healthy Start Coalition office is located at 333 17th Street Suite R, Vero Beach, just west of the Alma Lee Loy Bridge. For more information visit www.irchealthystartcoalition.org or call 772-563-9118.