Separated Children Seeking Asylum: Health and Social Educational Needs
This research study was produced by Dr Pauline Conroy and Frances Fitzgerald of Ralaheen Ltd. for The Health Service Executive. It was funded by The Crisis Pregnancy Agency. The study interviewed 23 unaccompanied minors seeking asylum. Of these, 6 were young men and the remaining 17 were teenage unaccompanied minor mothers under the age of 18. An extensive international literature review was included in the study.
All of the young mothers were:
- keen to continue in second level education and wished to obtain qualifications. However the absence of a national school retention policy and protocols for pregnant teenagers impacted negatively on the teenage mothers (but see page 2).
- unaware of free services or walk-in clinics that were available to them but all mentioned general practitioners as a good source of information and advice.

Many of those interviewed lived in hostels and reported experiencing isolation, loneliness and the absence of a constant parent-like adult figure. Many have minimal contact or interaction outside their own ethnic group and therefore it needs to be recognised that these teenagers are not coming from an Irish-based value system.
A number of service providers were unaware of the existence of these teenagers and made no adjustments to their service provision while others presumed that the needs of teenage asylum seekers were the same as for adults.

The Teen Parent Support Programme was identified as having potential to meet the needs of these teenagers.

Teenage Pregnancy in the UK
An independent study headed by Professor Kaye Wellings, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has found that the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy in the UK is starting to work. This strategy combines a national information campaign with coordinated local action to improve services and education. The study found that in most areas of high teen birth rates where the teenage pregnancy strategy has focused energy and money, rates of unprotected sex are stable and the teenage birth rate is going down. In more affluent areas, where the strategy has not been widely implemented, the number of young people not using contraception on a regular basis (and the rate of sexually transmitted infection) is actually rising.

Perhaps the most important finding is that sex education works. Girls who have more than 10 sex education sessions are less likely to get pregnant, while boys are more likely to use condoms. Sadly, only a third of the young people questioned had had more than 10 lessons. In most European countries sex education is compulsory and comprehensive. In Britain it is neither.
The Guardian, 1/7/2005

Sense and Sexuality
A support pack for addressing the issue of sexual health with young people in youth work settings
This support pack aims to provide youth organisations with a comprehensive framework within which to address the issue of sexual health with young people in a holistic manner. The pack addresses various issues from the role that youth organisations have in relation to young people’s sexual health to good practice guidelines and developing policy.

This support pack is available from
The National Youth Council Of Ireland
3 Montague Street, Dublin 2. 01 478 4122
info@nyci.ie www.youth.ie

These Guidelines for Best Practice were commissioned by the Parent Support Programme Limerick based in Limerick Social Services Centre. They are a culmination of three years interagency work and consultation with various focus groups, young parents and key workers who work directly with students who are pregnant or who are parents.

The Guidelines are aimed at supporting students who are pregnant and those who are parents within our education system. They provide a working template for schools/centres of education to develop guidelines for best practice around the needs of these students and explore how schools/centres of education might address these needs.

The vulnerability of a student who is pregnant needs to be kept to the fore at all times with the principles of
• confidentiality
• health and well being
• equity and access
• partnership
at the forefront of all interventions.

The Guidelines are divided into four key chapters that address the following:

Responding to a Disclosure of Student Pregnancy
This includes guidelines and practical suggestions for schools in dealing with disclosure, with parents and with students who become fathers.

Guidelines for support during Pregnancy
It is recommended that a student care plan be drawn up in partnership with the school, student and parent. The care plan will address the roles and responsibilities of staff, health and safety issues within the school, academic and demographic considerations and liaising with external agencies. A sample template is provided in the Guidelines.

Supporting the student after the birth
This chapter addresses the return of the student as a parent into the education system, what issues may arise and how the student may need to be encouraged to engage with peers as they are still young people themselves.

The Appendices
A list of useful contacts is provided along with a sample of a care plan for the student and how schools/centres themselves can use these guidelines to develop a policy document.

It is hoped that these Guidelines for best practice will provide a national framework for schools to adopt and develop their own guidelines. At present the document is being reviewed by the Department of Education and Science.

The Guidelines were funded by the Department of Health and Children and the Department of Education and Science.

Copies of these Guidelines are available free of charge from The Parent Support Programme, Limerick on 061 411643 or email npspmidwest@eircom.net

In looking at fertility in Ireland over the last 30 years the report shows that fertility rates in Ireland have been falling since the 1970s. The general trend in Ireland is for higher fertility rates for women in the older age groups with the highest age-specific fertility rate found among those in the 30 – 34 year old age group. A notable trend when looking at the age-specific fertility rates is the stability of the teenage fertility rate throughout the entire time period from 1973 to 2003.

However, the incidence of births outside marriage in Ireland has increased steadily. In 1973, 3.2% of births were outside marriage, compared with 31.4% in 2003. This is a similar trend to other EU countries. This trend is difficult to interpret but one researcher has suggested that a significant proportion of non-marital births take place within “quasi-marital unions”. The change in births outside marriage may reflect postponed marriage and a rise in co-habitation. It could also reflect a change in the general social climate whereby marriage is an assumed outcome for a woman who becomes pregnant. In 2002 Ireland has a mid-position amongst other EU countries with Northern European states such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France and the UK having a higher percentage of births outside marriage and the Southern European States having less – Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece and Germany. However, non-marital births do not necessarily mean births outside a stable relationship.

The teenage fertility rate is the number of live births per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19. Overall in Ireland there has been a slight decline in the teenage fertility rate from 22.4 in 1973 to 18.8 in 2003. Ireland’s teenage fertility rate, like that of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland has been “constantly low” when compared to other European countries.

The UK (27.34) and Portugal (20.44) have higher teenage fertility rates than Ireland whereas the Netherlands (7.5) Sweden (6.9), and Norway (11.2) have lower rates. However, some of these lower rates are partly as a result of the higher rates of teenage abortions in these countries.

Within Ireland, Limerick City (40.9), Dublin City (32.1), Waterford City (27.2) and Carlow (26.5) have the highest teenage fertility rates. Roscommon (7.2), Galway County (9.9), Sligo (10.5) and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown (10.7) have the lowest rates. Research in other countries has indicated a link between teenage pregnancy and deprivation, but there has been little investigation of this aspect of teenage pregnancy in an Irish context.

Crisis Pregnancy
The Irish Contraception and Crisis Pregnancy Study (also published by the Crisis pregnancy Agency, 2004) noted that 12% of all pregnancies experienced by women were defined as a crisis. Younger women (55% of 18 – 25 year olds) are more likely to have experienced a pregnancy as a crisis than older women (21% of 36 – 45 year olds).

Abortion
In 2003, 6,320 women giving Irish addresses had abortions in UK clinics compared with 4063 in 1990. In 2002 14.1% of abortions (916) were to women under 20. This represents 22.4%. of the total number of pregnancies in women under 20. The proportion for the 20 – 24 age group is 20.8% contrasting with 9.9% in the 25 – 29 age group and less than 5% in the 30 – 39 age group.

Adoption
The proportion of births outside marriage that result in adoption has declined dramatically in Ireland over the last three decades. In 1976 there were 1,005 “stranger” adoptions (39.5% of births outside marriage) and this had fallen to 99 in 2002 (0.5% of births outside marriage).
This Report is available from the Crisis Pregnancy Agency www.crisispregnancy.ie

Programme Developments
In our last Newsletter I referred to the fact that the HSE had allocated funding for 2 new Teen Parents Support Programmes. In fact, the HSE will now fund 3 new Programmes. These will be based in Cork, Carlow and Donegal.
The Carlow TPSP will be located in and managed by St. Catherine’s Community Services in Carlow town . The Cork Programme will be located in a premises close to the city centre and will be managed by St. Anne’s Day Care Nursery Ltd. in Sharman Crawford Street. The HSE in Donegal has just completed a tendering process which will determine where the TPSP there will be based.
Both Cork and Carlow have already advertised for staff to fill these new posts and Donegal will be doing so shortly. This is a very exciting development for the TPSP and it brings to 8 the total number of TPSPs throughout the country.
Meanwhile, through service level agreements with local non-governmental agencies, the Louth TPSP has been able to fund two part-time project workers. Ciara Finan is based in Drogheda Lifestart and Lucy Murphy is based in the Community Parents Support Programme in Dundalk. Both Ciara and Lucy work very closely with Joanne Murphy the TPSP Project Leader for Co. Louth. We wish them both every success in their posts.

School Completion Fund
The TPSP receives additional funding from School Completion Programme under a gender equality strand. This Programame which is administered by the Social Inclusion Unit of the Department of Education and Science, aims to retain young people in the education system to completion of the Senior Cycle, or equivalent. The 3 new TPSPs will now be included under this strand and some of the existing TPSPs have also recently received additional funding for the 2005/6 academic year. This collaboration is indispensable to the TPSP in supporting young mothers to remain in or return to education and we are very grateful to the Department of Education and Science for their support.

Would You Believe
On November 27th last RTE’s ‘Would You Believe?’ was based on the Galway TPSP. The programme which was subtitled ‘Mother and Child’ featured Shona Egan and her young son, Liam. With the support of her parents and the Galway TPSP Shona completed her Leaving Certificate this year and is now doing a third level course in Social Studies. The Programme also featured two young women whose babies are due early in 2006 as well as Aileen Davies, the Galway TPSP Project Leader. You can get more information about the RTE progamme on www.rte.ie

Margaret Morris
National Co-ordinator, TPSP 01-6700167 tpsp@treoir.ie

Treoir
The National Federation of Services for Unmarried Parents and their Children
14 Gandon House
Custom House Square
IFSC
Dublin 1
Tel: 003531 6700 120
Fax: 003531 6700 199
email: info@treoir.ie
www.treoir.ie

Disclaimer: The information contained in these Web pages is, to the best of our knowledge, true and accurate at the time of publication, and is solely for information purposes. We accept no liability for any loss or damage howsoever arising as a result of use or reliance on this information

Check out our Visitor Statistics
 
All content © National Co-ordination Unit for Senior Traveller Training Centres - Email gerard.griffin@sttc.ie
Web Design © Oscail Technology Services
Site Maintenance Deirdre Moynihan webmaster@sttc.ie