– Life along the Slaney

Last Thursday the Chief Executive of Barnados opened only the third of their Teen Parent Support Programmes (TPSP) in Gorey.

This raises a number of questions. Does Gorey have a particular need for such a service? Is there an epidemic of underage pregnancies in the north Wexford area? Most importantly however, why is this only the third of these programmes in the country?

Having a child when you are in your teenage years is probably one of the most frightening experiences your can go through. It is almost certainly unexpected and a lot of the time a result of a one-night stand where no contraception was used.

The fear of informing your parents, your peers and the nosy neighbours across the street could consume a person of considerable mental strength – not to mind a teenage girl.

While Gorey in the 21st century is a considerably more liberal and tolerant society than it was only 50 years ago, there is still a serious stigma attached to any teenage girl who gets pregnant.

While we no longer ‘get rid’ of the baby or send the girl to live with a relative in another part of the country for nine months, people will still have preconceived notions when they see a school girl in her uniform who is pregnant.

The programme launched last week, which has been operating in Gorey since July 2008 offers a welcome relief to these teenage parents. It is somewhere they can go without being judged and without fear of recrimination.

The staff there will help the young parents to find their way and inform them of what they need to do and how to do it.

Fortunately for the teenagers of north Wexford, they have a service like this, however if you were from Enniscorthy say and needed the help of TPSP you would be out of luck.

There are only three of these programmes, one in Dublin, a student parent programme in Waterford and the service in Gorey.

There is a serious demand for this service – Gorey TPSP has 45 clients at the moment – yet it has been left up to Barnados to provide it where they can. In other parts of the country there is a mish-mash of people trying providing a similar service. The HSE and Foroige are two of the groups who attempt to help teenage parents, but with nothing on the scale of the TPSP.

While the Irish education system still lags decades behind best practice in relation to sex education the problem is only likely to grow – here and across the country.

One mother speaking about her experiences at the launch told the assembled crowd of her dire situation when she found out she was pregnant. She was no longer on speaking terms with her parents and didn’t know what to do. She was lost.

Having been put in touch with TPSP, they helped her more out of her family home but also helped her to reconnect with her parents and helped her to look forward.

The goal of TPSP is to make teenage parent realise that having a child at that age does not necessarily mean the end of your life. While it may seem like an oxymoron, teen parents in Gorey are the lucky ones. They have access to this superb service while teen parents up and down the country have no such luck.

A lot of them are left to fend for themselves, alone and in fear. If the government are not going to update the sex education in our schools then they have a moral obligation to help those in trouble through teenage pregnancy and provide funding for Barnados to set up more of these centres around the country.