What helps

Dundee has the unenviable title of the teenage mother capital of Scotland. Here, two young mums tell Jack McKeown why they feel vilified, and how a small Dundee charity has helped them cope with raising their children alone.

Jodi Henry is 21 years old. She gave birth to her son Logan 14 months ago. When Dundee’s status as the teenage mother capital of Scotland comes up, she laughs, “I was 20 when I gave birth, so thankfully I’m not part of that statistic!”

Twenty-two-year-old Cheryl Murphy is the mother of one-year-old Rheanna and five-year-old Courtney-Leigh.

We’re sitting in the hall at St Andrews Parish Church on Dundee’s King Street, home to the St Andrews Family Support Project. Rheanna, Logan and Courtney-Leigh are playing next door with the other children, while Jodi and Cheryl are telling me about their experiences as young mothers.

Jodi started coming to the St Andrews Project before she gave birth to Logan. “I’ve been coming both days since Logan was born. It’s been great, I’ve learned a lot and gained a lot.”

The project, which has been operating since 2005, gives young mums a place where they can spend time with their children, speak to people in similar situations to themselves, and access training and education.

It’s funded by a range of bodies, including the Church of Scotland, the Robertson Trust, the Anchor Trust, Scottish Community Trust and the National Lottery.

Although the St Andrews Project is small, only running for four hours a day, two days a week, it links up with other organisations, such as the Mitchell Street Centre, which works with adult education, and peer education group Respond.

“We also help out with mundane, day-to-day things,” explains project leader Kathryn Miller. “Things like white goods for example —if any of the mums have problems we can help sort things out or put them in touch with people who can help.”

Jodi and Cheryl grew up together in Dundee’s Hilltown district, both going to St John’s High.

Jodi, who was homeless at the age of 16, moved into a council house earlier this year. “I’ve had a flat since February. It’s good having some stability, you don’t have to worry the rent’s going to go up and if you slip behind on your Council Tax it’s less stress.”

Cheryl, meanwhile, moved out of council accommodation in order to be close enough to walk her daughter to primary school.

“I moved into a bedsit when I was 16 and I’ve been on my own since then. I did have a council house, but it was too far to walk Courtney-Leigh to school, so I decided to move out.”

The two girls have been friends for years, but have been drawn closer—and struck up other friendships—through their association with the project.

“Coming here is great,” Cheryl says. “I come in and we have lunch. They’ve taught us about healthy eating, and we usually get soup and salad, and other healthy stuff.”

The project supplied the girls with a box of cooking ingredients, including spices and vegetable oil, along with a booklet of healthy recipes.

“It’s good because we’d struggle to afford to buy all those spices and it encourages us to cook,” Cheryl continues.

Jodi adds, “Everything I cooked used to be 25 minutes in the oven or in the micro-wave. Now I’m making bolognaise, stovies, curries from scratch. And I’ve got really into fruit smoothies—and it’s so much cheaper to make them yourself than to buy them. They’re about two quid for a wee bottle in the shops.”

Apart from the practical and material benefits, both girls say the project has simply helped to boost their confidence and self esteem.

“If Logan’s taking a temper tantrum I now know of different ways of dealing with it and distracting him,” Jodi says.“I went through a very tough time when I had Logan and lost a lot of confidence. This has helped bring it back.

“Logan loves coming here, too. He seems to know if it’s a Wednesday or Thursday. He wakes up all excited and jumps about in his pram all morning.

“It’s really helped him. He’s come out of his shell more because he has people to play with.”

“It does make you a bit more confident when bad things happen,” Cheryl agrees. “For instance, if Rheanna starts being sick, you learn to stay calm and not panic. If you panic, the child panics, so the key is just to deal with things and not get into a flap.

“It’s also good just to have people to talk to. I don’t have any family, so I don’t have anyone to talk to about things.”

The mothers bring their children along for up to four hours on a Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. They eat a healthy lunch and then are encouraged to play with their children. They also engage in art and writing projects and are able to attend training courses.

“Usually after lunch we do lots of games,” Jodi explains. “It’s great when they have the paddling pool out, and when we use foam.” “And that bath jelly that’s all gloopy,” adds Cheryl. Both girls collapse into giggles.

Kathryn says, “We try to encourage them to let their kids play games and get messy. A lot of these young mothers feel the most important thing is kitting their children out in designer gear and making sure they’re always immaculately clean. For them, having a clean, well-dressed child is a way of showing the world they’re coping on their own.

“We try to show them that it’s natural for kids to roll around and get messy. Of course, when they go round the town and their kids are a bit dishevelled and messy, they get nasty looks from people, as if they’re bad mothers. So it’s tough for them,it’s a kind of a lose-lose situation.”

Some of the girls who come to the St Andrews Project have jobs, but not many.

When Kathryn explains the ludicrous nature of the benefits system, you can understand why—it effectively provides a disincentive to work.

“Jodi was working as a part time barmaid earning around £400 a month. But that meant her benefits dropped to £12.50 a week.

“If she doesn’t work, she gets £100 a week and her rent paid. These young mums don’t want to be a burden on society, but the truth is that unless they do full-time hours, they’re actually worse off if they do work. And if they work full-time then they can’t bring up their child.

“Single mums who work are criticised for not being there for their children. But if they stay home and bring up their children, they’re called a burden on society. They can’t really win.”

“I’ve worked since I was 15,” Jodi protests. “So I’ve paid money into society. But I can’t make enough money working and still have time to bring up Logan.”

Of course, some readers may now be glaring at their paper and declaring the solution is to not get pregnant in the first place. But to do so is to state the obvious, oversimplify a complicated situation and ignore the fact that some girls want to be mothers, even if it has to be outside of the typical nuclear family situation.

“I know it [getting pregnant] was my own fault,” Cheryl says, “And I’ve got to face up to my responsibilities. I wouldn’t go away and have an abortion.”

Many of the girls involved in the project were born to teenage mothers and grew up in chaos and poverty. Not all of them know who their fathers were.

Jodi only met her father for the first time three months ago, after deciding to track him down. “I spoke to my mum about it first. If she hadn’t been fine with it I wouldn’t have done it.

“He lives in Coupar Angus and I went to see him, his girlfriend and three step kids. It went really well. He gets on really well with my son—it’s like he’s trying to make up for not being around for me by paying loads of attention to Logan.”

“The truth is that many of these girls have no-one to turn to for help,” says Kathryn. “Which is why it’s good for them to come here. We might not be able to help with every problem they have, but we can put them in touch with the right people and agencies to help them.

“Knowing who to turn to is often an issue for these girls, and we’re able to help them with that.

“It’s also not the case that they don’t want to work. These girls want to have a job and don’t like to be a burden on society.”

Jodi has been accepted on Dundee Healthy Living Initiative’s Exercise to Music course, which starts in August and is the first step towards her ambition of becoming an aerobics instructor.

Cheryl, meanwhile, has applied to the NHS Healthcare Academy, which provides training for unemployed people, leading to a job within the health service.

Places on the Healthcare Academy are very limited, but landing one would be particularly poignant for Cheryl.

“My mum died not long after I’d given birth to Courtney-Leigh. She had septicaemia and pneumonia. I looked after her for a year until she died. I was only 17, and I’d had Courtney-Leigh 10 days before my 17th birthday. I was at my mum’s from 9am until 9pm almost every day for a year, looking after her. My step-dad died of pancreatitis not long after that.

“It was pretty hard, but that’s life. Going through it made me want to become a health worker so I can look after other people.”

To contact the St Andrew’s Family Support Project call 01382 200 466 or Email parishproject@btconnect.com

Pictured at St Andrews Church Hall playgroup are Cheryl Murphy, with Courtney-Leigh and baby Rheanna, and (right) Jodi Henry with Logan.