Creating Opportunities and Choices for Young Parenting Women: An Australian Case-Study
Young women who parent early often experience considerable disruption to their opportunities for education and employment. In this paper, we present an analysis of the obstacles to education and employment facing young women who parent early and we outline a community development response to these barriers. In our paper we present current research pointing to the educational and socio-economic disadvantage facing young parenting women both prior to, and following, the birth of a child. Drawing on research and practice evidence, we contend that current policy directions aimed at integrating young parenting women into mainstream educational institutions is of limited effectiveness for young parenting women for a range of reasons, including many of these women's previous negative experiences of these institutions. We will outline a community development response to promoting young mothers' educational and employment opportunities developed over the past 9 years by The Benevolent Society's Centre for Women's Health in South West Sydney. The community development response includes a range of options developed with the young women including: an opportunities and choices educational program; a support network; and an enterprise centre. We discuss the principles underpinning this response, including promoting young women's participation in program development and delivery, and devising a range of practical programs and strategies for promoting young women's individual and collective choices in education and employment.