“The overarching goal is to make sure they realize their life doesn’t stop just because they’re a teen father,” mentioned James Hogue, the founding father of Dad Prep Academy.
By Anna Spoerre, for Missouri Impartial
Tyreque Carter held his 2-month-old son, outfitted in a festive Christmas onesie, as he congratulated one other soon-to-be teen father on his gender reveal: a woman.
They had been amongst a number of college students at DeLaSalle Excessive Faculty in Kansas Metropolis who filed into their seats as they chatted about ultrasound images and soiled diapers.
The group of teenagers, 5 with infants ages 2 to 12 months and two expectant, are a part of Dad Prep Academy, a pilot program launched this fall geared toward higher making ready younger dads for fatherhood.
“Just because an experience is difficult or tough doesn’t mean it’s not good, doesn’t mean it’s not building you up and developing you into something better,” James Hogue, a longtime educator and this system’s founder, instructed the teenagers sitting in a half circle earlier than him on a latest Thursday.
Two years in the past, Hogue left his job as an assistant principal to begin Fathers Aiding Moms Inc, a nonprofit that helps prepare males in doula practices to allow them to higher assist their companions throughout being pregnant, childbirth and postpartum.
However Hogue’s newest focus is geared toward serving to a bunch of fathers he not often sees sufficient sources going to: teenagers.
Whereas teen being pregnant charges throughout the state have been trending down, Kansas Metropolis nonetheless has one of many highest charges of being pregnant in teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17 in Missouri, in accordance with the Missouri Division of Well being and Senior Providers.
“I know these young men have greatness inside of them, all over them, and not many programs are speaking directly to these young men,” Hogue mentioned. “The overarching goal is to make sure they realize their life doesn’t stop just because they’re a teen father.”
This system takes Hogue again to his roots as an educator. Previous to beginning his nonprofit Fathers Aiding Moms Inc in 2022, he labored as an assistant principal.
However his curiosity within the intersection of schooling and fatherhood started two years earlier than that, when the pure dwelling beginning he and his spouse, Shunquita Hogue, had deliberate went out the window when she developed preeclampsia. So grateful for his or her doula’s assist transitioning to a hospital beginning, James Hogue determined to undergo doula coaching himself.
Now he makes use of that coaching to show expectant dads find out how to be “first responders for their partners” throughout being pregnant, labor and postpartum by means of boot camps and one-on-one teaching on subjects that embody “how to draft your winning birth team.”
However the teen program, which Hogue hopes to at some point increase into a number of faculties throughout the area and even state, is a bit completely different.
On a latest Thursday, Hogue was joined by his spouse to speak to the teenagers about every part from diaper rashes to stuffy noses, fevers and RSV.
Shunquita Hogue, a nurse, answered their questions on navigating outdated medical recommendation from elders, and find out how to make selections about vaccinations.
A lot of the curriculum is centered across the logistics of prenatal well being, postpartum, early childhood improvement, and monetary and profession planning. However Hogue additionally makes a degree to dive head-first into the emotional facets of parenthood, together with an area to grieve the life the teenagers beforehand imagined.
“You’re a young man, you’re still growing, you’re still trying to develop, but at the same time realizing that based upon the decisions you made, some of the frivolousness or frolicking youthfulness you would normally exude is different now,” Hogue mentioned. “You have to grow up.”
The category prior, two of the teenagers obtained into an argument over a feminine pupil. Sitting in entrance of the group, and flanked by Hogue and two different mentors, the teenagers work by means of the sticky state of affairs.
James Smith, director of pupil life at DeLaSalle, and one of many Dad Prep Academy mentors, mentioned he was relieved to see the 2 younger fathers discuss by means of the battle in a secure house, probably avoiding a a lot bigger confrontation.
Navigating interpersonal relationships is difficult for teenagers, and even more durable with a child within the combine. It’s a part of why Smith believes this system could be so necessary in countering lots of the traits he sees with pupil dad and mom, together with decrease attendance and decrease grades.
However he hopes the ripple results are a lot wider.
“If we can start to stabilize dads in their homes,” Smith mentioned. “Then hopefully they can continue a healthy relationship that’s an example for their child.”
Carter, one of many teenagers in this system, enrolled in this system two weeks after his son was born.
The 19-year-old mentioned previous to his youngster’s beginning, he didn’t have a lot expertise round infants, not like a few of his friends who grew up serving to take care of youthful siblings.
“This class really showed me it’s OK to not know what you’re doing,” Carter mentioned. “It’s OK to be confused and stressed and worried.”
Prior to now two months the category has helped him outline his personal position as a father and discover ways to higher assist his youngster’s mom.
“Communities like this, it reinforces that dads aren’t as clueless,” Carter mentioned. “ … Here it’s actually stepping into a supportive role and being committed, and being a part of your family.”
