With a guitar, under a tree, or over a feed.

Abstract

New Zealand society in general does not have a positive view of teenage fathers. Seven Year-2 counselling students and their lecturer were asked to evaluate a programme provided by the Otara Health Charitable Trust (OHCT) for teen fathers. The Trust had become concerned that these young people became almost invisible in the community where there were few services available for teen fathers. Those who had come to its attention told the Trust that being "invisible" was preferable to being reviled by those who should care most for them. The Trust had developed a programme to help teen fathers when the teen had behaved in such a way that his family would choose not to know him--the time when the child biologically becomes a father. Seven students from the Manukau Institute of Technology counselling programme worked with their lecturer to undertake this project as a cooperative inquiry form of participatory research. A total of 17 participants in the Teen Dads programme took part in the project. Guided by the participants' preferences about setting and structure, one initial individual interview led to eight subsequent group interviews with participants and researchers together, as the teenage fathers became increasingly comfortable describing their experiences of the programme, of counselling, and of being teen fathers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of New Zealand Journal of Counselling is the property of New Zealand Association of Counsellors and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)