Panel discusses youth issues at Leadership Summit

May 14—MOULTRIE — Issues facing Colquitt County youth were the theme at the recent Annual Archway Leadership Summit, which was attended by individuals representing many aspects of the community.

Individuals from law enforcement, government agencies, the hospital, businesses and the school system were given a candid look at some of the issues facing the community's youth, through a panel of speakers.

"I can't say that my topic is anymore fun to talk about but I was asked to talk to you guys about the teen pregnancy crisis you have in Colquitt County," Dr. Woodwin Weeks, chief of pediatrics at Colquitt Regional Medical Center said during his turn at the podium.

He said that every other week, he's in the hospital's nursery and he sees the moms, he sees the babies and he sees the families that are happy and excited to have the babies. Then, he said, he sees the aftermath of what happens when they go home.

"As the community doesn't have the resources that we really need to address this issue," he added.

He then gave statistics that showed that 47 out of 1,000 teens in Colquitt County are or have been pregnant, compared to 24 out of 1,000 throughout the State of Georgia.

"Nearly 20% of our teen-age moms, here in Colquitt County, will have a second child by the age of 20. So, that's a staggering number. That's a lot of kids who are having kids," he said.

Weeks said that one of the reasons that he was asked to speak about the issue was because the data also showed that Colquitt County has 13- and 14-year-old kids that are having children.

Weeks said that, from the healthcare perspective, "We really struggle. I'm just being honest as one of the leaders in taking care of these ladies that are having babies. We really struggle to take good care of them because we don't have the resources already in place to do that."

"Unfortunately, what we do see, also, is a lot of teen-age moms that we have in the hospital — this isn't all of them and this isn't speaking of all of them — but a lot of them lack a strong support system at home," he said.

He went on to say that a lot of the young mothers may themselves have a single parent at home who works full-time, who's not going to be able to help with a baby.

"There really is limited access to community resources for teen-age mothers. We have some great advocacy groups. We have some great resources but actually connecting those teen-age moms to those resources is very difficult," he said.

He said that he had been thinking of some things that could be done and some opportunities to improve the teen pregnancy situation.

"I'm a strong advocate for comprehensive sex education. I will be the first to say, I know this is very personal on a family-level, religious-level and a community-level but we also know that there are some who do not get that at home," he said.

Weeks said that he was also a huge advocate for breast feeding because if they want to help the teen moms bond with their babies and develop good maternal skills, breast-feeding education is important.

He said another thing would be to have culturally relevant parenting courses that include the fathers.

"Again, 'culturally relevant' being the keyword there because different cultures have very different, entrenched beliefs about what it means to be a mom and dad. and when you add into that, that component of them being a child themselves, I think it's important we look at each child and each group of children on an individual basis," he said.

Weeks reiterated that additional community resources — specific to teen parents — needed to be found.

"Our teen-age parents are not going to come to parenting classes where you have moms and dads that have been married for five years, that are successful and have everything they need. They're not going to do that," he said.

He went on to say that the parenting classes would probably need to happen in the school system or in a place where they get some school credit for being there.

"So, I think that developing some of those community resources is part of the answer," he said.

He said, in closing, that while he'd like to see teen-age pregnancies decrease, a pregnancy is not the end of the world.

"It is the end of the world for them when, as a community, we don't have the resources and the support for them," he said.

Foster care

Wendy Greene, executive director of Never Lost CASA, a non-profit that matches trained volunteers with children in foster care to be their advocate in court, also spoke.

"We have multiple programs that are housed under Never Lost. The one you're probably the most familiar with is CASA Kids' court appointed special advocates," she said.

She said that it was a state-wide and nationally affiliated program where they train community residents who are then sworn in as officers of the court to be advocates for children in the foster care system.

"When a child enters foster care and a juvenile court judge appoints that CASA volunteer for them, we match that child with a CASA volunteer to advocate for their best interests in juvenile court," Greene said.

She went on to say that the volunteer advocates were just community members and they didn't have to have a specific background or a specific degree. They want a person who can provide common sense and provide an independent investigation of the circumstances that brought that child to foster care.

She said another program under Never Lost is the Compass Kids, which is a support program for children, families and caregivers who are affected by foster care. She said they see grandparents or aunts and uncles take a child in, which is an alternative to foster care.

"Which is wonderful because families stay together and the children stay out of the foster care system but it can also be really taxing for our families," she said.

She said that, through the Compass Kids program, they make sure that the families have everything that they need to take care of the children.

The third program that she spoke about was the Prevent Child Abuse South Georgia Council, which links different community organizations and community leaders to raise awareness on how to prevent child abuse.

She said that she thought, overall, Colquitt County was doing better with foster care than other counties that she works in.

She said that some of the contributing factors to children going into foster care here are lower household income, the number of children living in poverty, lack of secure income, lack of education and the number of children in single parent households.

"For children that are in foster care, right now, in Colquitt County, over 90% are placed outside of Colquitt County," she said.

She that makes a real barrier to reunification because not only are the children removed from their parents, but they also lose their school system, their friends, their church and their sense of community.

"There's so many ways that you can get involved. It does not necessarily mean being a foster parent. That's not for everybody," Greene said and added that one way would be to become a CASA volunteer.