Welcome to Eyes Wide Open
Honouring Teenage Parents and their Children - A partnership between Mandurah Senior College and Peel Youth Services.
The EWO Program is for students who are pregnant or teenage mothers. Parenting commitments and being unable to take their babies to school prevent them from accessing the curriculum and achieving their potential in a main stream learning environment.
The aim of the program is to address their needs as young parents by re-engaging them with education and learning parenting skills in a safe environment.
The program is also open to young mothers outside the target age group if places are available.
|
|
|
Background Information
|
|
|
|
The program provides better chances for young teenage mothers and their children to achieve their potential and build a better future. This is specifically through enabling these parents to complete their secondary education.
|
|
|
Learning positive parenting skills aims to build effective parenting and relationship skills, build opportunities and skills for economic self reliance, and build partnerships between local services strengthening support and improving service delivery to these parents. The program is designed to assist young teenage mothers to understand the changes in their lives that a baby will bring and develop a network of support and knowledge to adequately prepare them for the birth of their child.
|
Publicity Increasing
|
|
|
|
The following is an article published in the Mandurah Mail, June 3 2009.
|
|
|
The Eyes Wide Open Alternative Education Program was celebrating last month after reaching its first anniversary.
The Eyes Wide Open project, which has been operating for the past six years, offers support, education, information and specialised programs for young parents, in particular mothers and pregnant young women.
|
|
|
|
|
In 2007, the group successfully applied for funding that enabled it to have a venue to run its programs.
In February 2008, the group identified that young parents were finding it extremely hard to return to education.
In conjunction with Mandurah Senior College, the Eyes Wide Open program extended its services to enable participants to graduate in years 10, 11 and 12.
In May 2008, the Alternative Education program began focusing on young parents between the ages of 14 and 17.
A year later and the program is well utilised by young parents, some of who have already moved on to further studies or university.
Project manager Be Westbrook congratulated Mandurah Senior College for the partnership they had shared over the past year.
"Our young parents now have opportunities to expand their chances of education and potential," Ms Westbrook said.
|
