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NewsSeptember 22, 1995

As the Teen Pregnancy and Responsibility Network gears up for its 10th anniversary, The PARENT Project is bracing for closure. Part of the pregnancy network, the two-year-old PARENT Project provides classes, support groups, home visits and encouragement to stay in school. It takes about $45,000 a year to pay for salaries and supplies, and that money came from a Children's Trust Fund grant for two years...

HEIDI NIELAND

As the Teen Pregnancy and Responsibility Network gears up for its 10th anniversary, The PARENT Project is bracing for closure.

Part of the pregnancy network, the two-year-old PARENT Project provides classes, support groups, home visits and encouragement to stay in school. It takes about $45,000 a year to pay for salaries and supplies, and that money came from a Children's Trust Fund grant for two years.

Now the problem is coming up with matching funds -- 30 percent for the grant's third year. Southeast Missouri State University already donates office space, a computer and a phone line, and Dr. Shelba Branscum hopes the community comes forward with actual dollars.

"We went out of this area to get money to get it started, and we can't keep doing that," she said. "We're at the point where the community needs to say, `This is something we need. It's really making a difference.'"

If the project holds out one more year, other sources of funding should become available for 1996-97.

Branscum and the program's executive director, Sherri Sparks, stress that The PARENT Project doesn't exist to make life easy on teen mothers. It doesn't provide any monetary help.

"We're trying to help them get to resources, stay in school and to keep them from abusing their children," Branscum said. "We want them to have resources to help them make wise decisions in their lives."

Branscum and Sparks want to access mental health mill tax money, other grants and corporate sponsors to keep the fledgling program alive.

In the meantime, other members of the Teen Pregnancy and Responsibility Network provide various services for pregnant teens and their children. The network, which has met monthly for nearly 10 years, is made up of people from the Division of Family Services, Cape Girardeau schools, the Cape Girardeau County Health Department, The PARENT Project and Southeast Missouri State University.

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Members are revising and redistributing a booklet called "It's Your Life, It's Your Body," in area schools and welfare agencies. It discusses abstinence, contraceptives, adoption, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases, following the information with addresses and phone numbers of agencies to help pregnant or infected teens.

Teens took more than 6,000 copies of the booklet in Cape Girardeau, Perry, Bollinger and Iron counties over the last two years. The booklet is in its fourth printing.

Statistics show a need for more information. In 1993, the last year numbers are available for, 131 Cape County women under 20 had babies, and 43 were under 18. Many received inadequate prenatal care or none at all.

Cape County Health Department nurse Carol Sarff said many of the teens she sees have a warped idea about motherhood. At her last pregnancy-testing clinic, two 16-year-olds wanted their tests to come up positive. At another clinic, a 16-year-old asked to "pray over" her urine so her test would be positive.

"They know they will get state aid, and think they can move in with their boyfriends and live happily ever after," Sarff said.

A 16-year-old mother recently came in high on drugs. Her test was positive -- her eighth pregnancy after one live birth and six miscarriages. She told Sarff she wouldn't get off drugs or do anything differently since she was pregnant.

The Cape County Health Department provides temporary Medicaid cards for teens who want the help. The card allows them to receive prenatal care through Southeast Missouri Hospital. The girls may also receive W.I.C. funding for healthy food.

After the baby, the health department tries to set teen mothers up with East Missouri Action Agency's family planning services.

Although the Teen Pregnancy and Responsibility Network works hard at prevention, the numbers seem to be going up, Sarff said. The mothers she sees are younger and younger.

"We know maybe we can't prevent the first baby, but we're trying to prevent the second or third," she said.

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