Teenage mothers need help if they’re going to succeed. Anna McNamee looks at a fostering scheme that provides family support

To see Julie cooing over her little girl now, it’s hard to imagine anyone ever questioned whether or not she would be a fit parent. But they did.

Julie left school at 15. After a period in care she was back living with her mother but the atmosphere was hardly peaceful. The way Julie remembers it, she and her mum were involved in endless alcohol-fuelled rows. A year later she became pregnant.

‘It was actually planned but when you’re young, you don’t realise what you’re getting yourself into – like the responsibility, and it is a big responsibility. You just think about having this nice baby and dressing it up in frilly dresses.’

Her local social services agreed. With no qualifications and an unstable home-life, Julie would have faced an uphill battle trying to provide a secure and loving home for her baby. The statistics show that it’s hard to succeed. Babies born to teenage mothers often end up in care.

‘They wanted to put me into a hotel-place,’ she says referring to the local mother and baby hostel. ‘I went there and it was really rough. I just didn’t like the look of it at all. But I had been in a foster home before and I quite liked it, so when they asked me if I would like to be placed with a family I said yes.’

Julie was five months pregnant when she moved in with Pat Crinion. Pat, whose children were grown-up and left home, agreed to foster her as part of an initiative aimed at providing young mums with support and accommodation during those difficult first months of being a parent.

The overwhelming success of this project has convinced the National Foster Care Association that these arrangements can help break the cycle that results in many girls born to teenage mothers becoming pregnant in their teens themselves.

Malcolm Phillips, a helpline worker for the association, says: ‘Fostering can offer stability and support, certainly for young women in care who become pregnant or those who get thrown out of the parental home and end up in care because they have become pregnant. The baby benefits from being brought up in a family environment and the young mothers gain tremendously from the support and advice offered by the foster mother. It also enables some teenage mothers to complete their schooling or to have a job.’

Despite a recent dip in the numbers, Britain still has the highest rate of under-18 conception in Western Europe. Every year, around 56,000 babies are born to teenage mothers in this country. That’s twice as high as the rate in Germany, three times what it is in France and six times the rate in the Netherlands. In Britain, nearly 8,000 babies are conceived by girls under 16 and 2,200 by under-14 year olds every year.

Poverty, poor educational opportunities and being born to a teenage mother have all been identified as possible predicators and the number of young mums who have grown up in care themselves perpetuates the cycle. A study published by the National Children’s Bureau in 1995 showed that a quarter of women who had been in care had a child by the age of 16 and that nearly half were mothers within 24 months of leaving care.

Over the last decade, Pat Crinion has fostered 11 young mothers. ‘You can build up quite a good relationship,’ she says. ‘I make an assessment of how much support a young mum will need. Some need more practical help right from the word go – how to hold a baby or feed a baby – as basic as that. Some need more emotional support. Some need both.’

‘We became quite close, me and Pat,’ says Julie. ‘She was there when my baby was born. She video-ed the whole thing.’

A successful foster carer needs more skills than being able to work a video camera. Patience and diplomacy are essential, says Pat. ‘It is a case of not taking over as the mother figure with the child and allowing the mum to do her own mothering. I feel I can mother the young mum, giving her the example but also the support, then she can mother her own child. All the young mums who have been placed with me have moved on. And all are managing to varying degrees.’

Although both Pat and Julie are keen to emphasise the positive aspects of the fostering relationship, they admit that there can be stresses.

‘Mums don’t necessarily look after their babies the way you’d like them to – they may let them cry all night,’ says Pat. But she insists that no carer is left to make a go of it on their own.

‘There’s a support network for both the young mum and myself. Each young mum who is placed here has a social worker and I have a link worker. We have the support of the health service and health visitors and whatever support is needed we can get it.’

‘We had one blazing row once and I was going to go,’ laughs Julie. ‘But Pat came upstairs and said “I don’t want you to go” and we cried and hugged. Thank God I didn’t leave because I don’t know what I’d do without her to be honest.’

There is no time limit on the arrangement. It continues until the young mum feels she can manage on her own. At that point the foster carer often takes on the role of the girl’s outreach worker – still around to provide support and advice when and if it’s needed.

Julie and her baby stayed with Pat for two years and have kept in close contact since they moved into a place of their own.

‘Pat is like a second grandmother to my daughter,’ says Julie. ‘I’m still close to my own mum, but thank God I had that break from her. I don’t know what it would have been like bringing up baby with all that arguing going on.’

For more information on fostering young mothers, look at the National Foster Care Association website or contact them on 020 7620 6437. You can also contact your local council.