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What
is GRADS?
New Mexico Graduation Reality and Dual-role
Skills
The NM GRADS system:
- Facilitates completion of high school
- Emphasizes the importance of prenatal
care
- Enhances self-image by helping young teens
identify and address barriers to success
- Teaches and models healthy parenting skills
- Utilizes teen panels for peer education
- Provides the opportunity to earn TECH
PREP credit & learn parenting skills while studying child development
- Fosters goals toward a balanced work &
family life
- Prepares individuals for work or educational
opportunities
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Who
are GRADS students?
Grads students are:
- Pregnant and/or parenting teens ages 13-21
in grades 6-12
- Students who want to make a difference
in the lives of their peers
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How
will GRADS help me be successful?
GRADS will provide learning experiences related
to:
- Decision Making
- Personal Growth
- Relationships & Social Support Systems
- Pregnancy Wellness and Prenatal Care
- Post Partum Neonatal Care
- Parenting
- Enhancing Child Development
- Creation of a Healthy and Safe Environment
- Employability
- Economic Independence
- Becoming a Peer Educator
GRADS teachers and Staff provide home visits
and individual conferences to facilitate you in making referrals to:
- child care during and beyond high school
- transition programs into school or the
work place
Teachers will help students:
- Share with others the economical and educational
realities of being a teen parent.
- Establish important connections with Peers,
Counselors, Teachers, School Nurse, and School Administrators
- Solve individual challenges
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Issues
addressed in GRADS:
- Healthy relationships with parents, boyfriends,
husbands, in-laws, brothers, sisters, and children
- Effective communication for conflict resolution
and problem solving
- Multigenerational family life
- Career exploration and employment
- Financial planning
- Parenting
- Parenting and child development of both
generations
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Consequences
for teen parents.
Only 64% of teen mothers graduate from high
school or earn a GED, as compared to 94% of teenage girls who did not
have a baby.
- Employment options are decreased while
the likelihood of poverty increases.
- They are at greater risk of facing low-wage
jobs, unemployment, poverty, and welfare.
- 80% of teen parents come from dysfunctional
family backgrounds.
- Teens who give birth are more likely to
come from economically disadvantaged family situations, be poor academic
achievers with low aspirations and have substance abuse and behavioral
problems.
- Teen moms are more likely to repeat the
cycle of their mothers who completed fewer years of schooling. Siblings
are equally at risk.
- Nearly 80% of teen mothers eventually
go on welfare.
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