750,000 Teens Pregnant Each Year - What Hope Cottage is Doing About It

In battling the teen pregnancy crises sweeping the nation, Hope Cottage educates teenagers about the realities of the issue.  Did you know that 750,000 girls become pregnant each year in the United States?  Did you know that Dallas is rated the NUMBER ONE city for repeat teen pregnancies in the nation?  Don't feel badly - most teens don't know these facts either.  These numbers are staggering and continue to rise.

Statistics prove teen pregnancy is taxing on both youth and community resources and reflect an overall misunderstanding about the realities of being a teen parent.  To address these issues, Hope Cottage offers a free presentation, Teen Mentoring and Prevention (TMAP).  TMAP focuses on the challenges of teen pregnancy while including an interactive life skills lesson about effective decision making.  TMAP is not a sex education program - it is a fact based, age appropriate discussion about a situation that is too easily becoming the norm.  Teachers appreciate how TMAP complements TEKS objectives.  TMAP empowers teens with the knowledge and skills to confidently advocate for teen pregnancy prevention in both the lives of area teens and the lives of their peers. 

In the 2010-2011 school year,  Hope Cottage  delivered TMAP presentations to more than 1,000 students in schools throughout DFW.  If you are interested in learning more about TMAP or scheduling a presentation, contact Christina Easton at 214.526.8721, ext 203 or CEaston@hopecottage.org. 

HopeCottage is the oldest nonprofit, non sectarian adoption agency in Dallas. Since 1918 Hope Cottage has been building and nurturing strong families through counseling, education and adoption services.

If you have questions about adoption, please call Hope Cottage at 214.526.8721. 

If you are a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy and would like to talk to someone about adoption, please call Hope Cottage at 1.800.944.4464 or 214.404.4546.

Gerry Garibaldi, Teen Pregnancy and Hope Cottage

We don't normally post on Monday, but every now and then you feel compelled to comment. 

Over the weekend, the Dallas Morning News carried a reprint of an article by Gerry Garibaldi.  The article originally ran in the City Journal, a quarterly magazine that covers urban affairs.  The article is entitled "Nobody Gets Married Anymore, Mister".  For many years, Garibaldi was a screenwriter in Hollywood and is currently a teacher in an urban Connecticut high school.  He points out that all the money in the world can't help what he sees as the main problem in our high schools.

"Here’s my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch."

Which makes me glad  Hope Cottage offers free to area high schools and youth groups Teen Education in the form of ABCs of Adoption and TMAP (Teen Mentoring and Prevention).  With these two programs, we talk to teens about choices and how to avoid those life changing choices.  We talk about statistics affiliated with being a teen parent:  child most likely to be raised in poverty... mother mst likely to drop out of school... child most likely to drop out of school.  By the end of this calendar year more than 1,000 teenagers in the metroplex will have been through this training.  1,000 students that hopefully won't end up like Nicole and Jasmine. 

If you are interested in having Hope Cottage present one of our Teen Ed programs, contact Susan at 214.526.8721, ext 215.  There is no cost for the programs.

Hope Cottage is the oldest nonprofit, non sectarian adoption agency in Dallas. Since 1918 Hope Cottage has been building and nurturing strong families through counseling, education and adoption services.



If you have questions about adoption, please call Hope Cottage at 214.526.8721.


If you are a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy and would like to talk to someone about adoption, please call Hope Cottage at 1.800.944.4464 or 214.404.4546.