Teen Pregnancy: An Epidemic in Foster Care

[babylonsister]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1911854,00.html

Teen Pregnancy: An Epidemic in Foster Care
By Amy Sullivan Wednesday, Jul. 22, 2009

Pregnant Teen

Lawrence Manning / Corbis


What's tougher than being a pregnant teenager? Try being a pregnant teenager in foster care. Miranda Sheffield had pinballed in and out of more than 10 foster homes in Southern California by the time she became pregnant with her daughter at the age of 17. "I was close to aging out ," she says of the program that in most states finds temporary homes for children until they are 18. "And when I got pregnant, I found there was no support for me. It was like, 'We need to get you out of foster care because we won't be able to handle you and a baby.' "

After years of steady decline, teen-pregnancy rates are rising around the country. But the numbers for girls in the foster-care system have reached truly epidemic levels. One study at the University of Chicago found that nearly half of girls who had spent time in the foster-care system had been pregnant at least once by the time they were 19 years old. Even more troubling, unplanned pregnancy had already become a pattern for many of the young women — close to a quarter had experienced multiple pregnancies in their teens. (Read "Behind the Boom in Adult Single Motherhood.")

The stats shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows the risk factors for teen pregnancy. A new report released this week by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy finds that almost half of the 500,000 or so kids in foster care had sex for the first time before age 16, compared with 30% of their peers. They're also more likely to have experienced forced sex and less likely to use contraception.

Yet very few advocates and policymakers have focused on the issue of pregnancy among foster youth. "Most people in the teen-pregnancy field don't really pay much attention to teens in foster care," explains the National Campaign's senior policy director, Andrea Kane. "And most people working in the child-welfare system are so busy trying to place kids in homes that they don't focus much on pregnancy prevention." That's starting to change. Last week, her organization announced that it is teaming up with Planned Parenthood to address the crisis in foster care — and to make sure that the White House doesn't forget about foster teens as it develops a strategy to reduce the number of abortions nationwide.

Perhaps the most important asset teenagers need to avoid early parenthood is a strong relationship with parents or other adults in their lives. But these are precisely the kinds of bonds that many foster teens lack. "You're so busy being transferred from home to home," says Alixes Rosado, who has been in foster care in Connecticut since he was 6 years old. "You don't have a lot of stable connections." The 20-year-old estimates that he has worked with a different social worker every year for the past 10. "And not a single one talked about sex."

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http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1911854,00.html

[bobburgster]

1. Used to be a Foster Parent

We had a girl...hmmmmm, I believe she was 15 at the time she was placed with us who was pregnant. It was a sad situation to say the least. She somehow was placed way up north with us miles away from her southern state home. We saw her through the birth of the baby trying to teach parenting skills. She left us not long after.....they do love moving them around.....though it was probably best for us at the time we didn't think so.