At Risk Youth

For the past year, MSNBC’s “Elkhart Project” has been providing viewers and readers with a personal look at the impact of the economic downturn as experienced by the citizens of Elkhart, Indiana.

In the project’s latest article, MSNBC reporter Kari Huus wrote about the challenges facing 19-year-old Nate Howell and his pregnant girlfriend, 17-year-old Samantha Keith:

Now, facing parenthood, he and Samantha are in a tough spot — one that tends to come with a high price. Research shows that people who have children in their teens are less likely to get a high school diploma or go on to college. They tend to earn less in the working world, and children born to these teens struggle to keep up with their peers. For many, beating back poverty becomes the overriding concern.

“The data is overwhelming that teen pregnancy has a negative impact on education and employment,” says James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.,-based nonprofit. “While that is a problem during any economic cycle, it becomes even more of a negative during a recession.”

After declining for 15 years, the teen pregnancy rate is now on the rise in the United States, which has by far the highest rate in the industrialized world.

A multi-year, multimillion dollar campaign aimed at reducing instances of teen pregnancy in Great Britain has failed badly. Teens who participated in the Young People’s Development Program (YPDP) were found to be more likely to become pregnant.

A total of 16 percent of the YPDP group fell pregnant compared with 6 percent in the other group, which was a youth program that did not receive YPDP funds.

Young women in the intervention group also more commonly reported early heterosexual experience (58 percent vs. 33 percent) and expectation of teenage parenthood (34 percent vs. 24 percent), the study said. (Source: Inverurie Herald)

More than 2,300 teenagers participated in the campaign, which included sex education and information on the dangers of drug use.