Balga Senior High School Young Parents Program

The Balga Senior High School Young Parent’s Program has been in operation since February 2002. The program has evolved and expanded to cater for the individual needs of teen parents and their families. The purpose of the program is to encourage teen parents to complete their secondary education. This program is available to all teen parents in Western Australia. It is unique in that it has an accredited child care centre on the school campus. This enables the teen parents to access the child care centre to see their children throughout the day. This is particularly beneficial for lactating mothers and for children suffering “separation anxiety”.

A student services team is employed to access the individual needs of each parent and provide specialised support in their relevant field. The three focus areas are Education, Child care and Parent Support.

Education

Students are integrated into mainstream classes relevant to their academic abilities. A teacher is employed to liase with teachers in the school to devise Collaborative Action Plans and Individual Education Plans to ensure students are able to access levels of study that will enable them to achieve their goals.

Positive Parenting Program

One day is timetabled per week for the Positive Parenting Program. This is a day where all the young parents in the school participate in activities and workshops. This day covers three main areas:

Parent Child Bonding: A variety of parent child activities are facilitated to promote attachment and bonding, each term will have a different focus, activities include Swimming lessons, Playgroup, Gymbaroo, and Sing and Grow.

Positive Parenting: Being a parent is challenging and we try and facilitate a number of workshops that assist with parenting through the assistance of a number of other agencies. Workshops include topics such as nutrition, sleep, behaviour management, and safety. We also provide workshops in ante natal care for parents that are pregnant.

Life Skills/Personal Development: Parents can also need information and assistance and so a number of workshops address personal and life issues. This may cover topics such as drugs and alcohol, sexual health, relationships, and money management.

Parent Support

Parent Support Workers are available on school campus to provide practical support to the teen parents. This may relate to issues such as centrelink and housing/accommodation and personal matters such as parenting issues, relationships, and health and wellbeing. The Parent Support Coordinator also links young parents with other agencies and services as required.

Holiday Program

Each holidays (except summer holidays) a holiday program is developed with various activities and excursions for young parents and their children to attend. Activities may be just for parents, for example going to the movies or activities with their children such as a trip to the Zoo.