Teenage Mothers and Fathers
95% of Straight Talking's Peer Educators move on to education, employment and training
We are helping teenage parents to reach their potential. By employing teenage parents and acknowledging their expertise, their levels of confidence are quickly raised. Staff meetings reduce their isolation and they regularly socialise outside the workplace. When a teenage parent attends their first staff meeting with the charity, they are often quiet and withdrawn. It is testament to the charity's success that at subsequent meetings, they participate with real enthusiasm.
Teenage parents speak young people’s language and so earn respect in the classroom. Their new-found confidence and the charity’s encouragement and support leads them back into education and on to further employment.
Straight Talking provides one to one mentoring, visits from careers advisors, counsellors and other professionals. They are given support with finance issues and signposted for further help.
They receive comprehensive support and training to deliver the programme and their progress is regularly monitored, assessed and reviewed. They receive extra training in child protection, classroom behavior management and equal opportunities and diversity.
If a young parent shows a sense of responsibility and maturity towards their employment, they are offered driving lessons (subject to funding and length of employment with Straight Talking).
Some of our teenage mothers and fathers are now;
- employed by Barking & Dagenham local authority to coordinate our work there and run other services.
- job sharing a full time post as Staff Managers for our charity
- a Youth worker
- a Community Police Officer
- undertaking a degree in teaching to become secondary teachers (3 young parents)
- partipating in a diploma to become ante natal teachers (partnership with the National Childbirth Trust
- studying for an MA
- studying for a business degree
The charity is able to provide a reference for future employment for the peer educators.
From time to time Straight Talking is able to run residential trips of teenage mothers and fathers for team building and to support them with a variety of issues.