Teen Births No. 1 in Holyoke

The Daily Collegian - 4/18/08
By David Humphreys and Frank Godinho

A problem the city of Holyoke faces on a daily basis is its No. 1 ranking of teen births, the Public Health Council's annual "Massachusetts Births 2005" report said.

With 96.8 of every 1000 females between the ages of 15 and 19 giving birth, Holyoke exceeds Chelsea's No. 2 ranking by over 20 births, according to the report.

Though these numbers are down since 1995, they still show an alarming trend in the city's birth rates, which have increased more than any other Massachusetts city since the 2004 report. The big question is: Will Holyoke's rank drop in the 2006 report? The simple answer is no.

"This is not a new thing that Holyoke is No. 1 …what we do this year isn't going to change that," said Amy Leos-Urbel, the director of Student Support Services at Community Adolescent Resource & Education (CARE) Center, Inc. in Holyoke.

According to Leos-Urbel, the high teen birth rate is not a one-year problem, but rather a combined effort over many years to help educate young men and women about parenthood and safer-sex practices.

To help promote teen parenthood education, the CARE Center, one of the institutions in Holyoke dealing with the teen pregnancy problem, offers an alternative day school to teenagers who are either pregnant or have given birth. This program addresses the city's elevated high school dropout rate by giving the teens a chance to get their GED while offering services such as daycare and support groups. In the last three years, more than 85 percent of Care Center participants who have received their GED have gone on to college.

Girls, Inc., another agency serving young women in the city, started in 1982 after the local YWCA shut down. Over the past three years, only two members of the program's 3,000 teens have become pregnant. Girls, Inc. attributes that statistic to its strong focus on a variety of issues that affect female teens, including pregnancy prevention.

"The way that we address teen pregnancy prevention is by a whole host of health education trainings … We do everything from distribute free condoms to having health clinicians come in from Planned Parenthood or the Holyoke Health Center, and they'll do on-site counseling and contraception education with the girls," said Heidi Thomson, the Girls, Inc. director of development and public relations.

According to Thomson, a high school student at Holyoke High School only receives eight hours of health education during their four years. However, at Girls, Inc., in one year, a teen will receive 120 hours of education, primarily related to sex.

The various educational programs used by Girls, Inc. include Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy and Making Proud Choices, which is run by peer leadership programs.

"Each curriculum we use is researched based and scientifically proven to be effective. On a more informal basis, however, our girls [through the peer leadership programs] do street outreach and peer education about the local resources of health education and how to stand up for yourself," said Thomson.

Despite what is being done to educate teens about parenthood, Girls, Inc. and The Care Center are having their funding lowered because Massachusetts has the lowest teen birthrates in three decades. And while this may save money for use in other areas, it doesn't help the city of Holyoke.

According to Thomson, the changes made within government administration ultimately have the strongest impact in the amount of funds available to agencies dealing with teen pregnancy and teen pregnancy prevention. The amount of allocated funds change from year to year based on the personal agenda of whoever is in charge of federal and state funding, she said.

"I think of [the high teen birth rate] as a symptom rather than a cause," said Leos-Urbel, citing Holyoke's high poverty rate and unemployment as two of the top factors contributing to the birth rate.

Heidi Thomson agrees: "I think that you can never look at teen pregnancy in isolation from other social issues. When you put together the socioeconomic challenges that this city has, you're bound to have a breeding ground for other social issues, like teen pregnancy, drug abuse, crime rate, and it's all factored together," she said,

Also, according to Leos-Urbel, ethnicity may possibly play a role in teen pregnancies. "For some Latinos, there isn't a stigma [associated with teen pregnancy]," she said.

According to statistics from the birth report, 73.2 of every 1000 Hispanic teenage females in the state gave birth in 2005, compared to the next highest group, black non-Hispanics, with 36.4 out of 1000.

These numbers are lower than the 2005 national average, which are 81.5 births per 1000 Hispanic teens and 60.9 births per 1000 black non-Hispanic teens, the Child Trends DataBank Web site said.

According to the 2000 census taken by the U.S. Census Bureau, with 41.4 percent of all Holyoke residents reporting Hispanic heritage compared to the statewide average of 6.8 percent, ethnicity may indeed play a significant part in contributing to city's high teen birth rate.

"The main problem may be that teen pregnancy is looked at as a women's issue, when it's not. Girls aren't getting themselves pregnant. Who's educating the boys? It's not happening in schools and it's not happening at home. There's a social lack of responsibility concerning fatherhood," said Thomson.

Whether Holyoke's high teen pregnancy rate is due to the high Latino population, lack of funding or even just a poor health curriculum, its status as the teenage birth capital of Massachusetts won't disappear overnight. It will take work from both adults and teens to combat this problem and help control the runaway pregnancies plaguing the city.