Feb. 1--The job description called for an independent-living mentor, someone who could help teens with no place to go learn how to make it on their own.
That would be tough enough, Tracy Banner knew.
It got tougher fast.
"I realized that I wasn't doing independent-living mentoring as much as I was doing parenting mentoring," said Banner, who started working for Huckleberry House in 2007 and became its first parenting mentor last year.
The 40-year-old agency, founded to provide a safe place for runaway youth in Columbus, finds itself firmly in the baby business: Of the 24 youth in its transitional-living program, 16 are parents.
"This definitely is the new horizon for Huckleberry House," Executive Director Becky Westerfelt said.
Researchers worry about a nationwide shift, too. A report released last week by the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health research group with offices in New York and Washington, D.C., shows that the pregnancy rate among 15- to 19-year-olds jumped 3 percent from 2005 to 2006.
That's the first increase since 1990, according to Guttmacher's analysis of the most recent federal data.
In Franklin County, the increase also was 3 percent from 2005 to 2006, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Estimates show it declining by a similar rate in 2007, then rising slightly again in 2008.
Experts say it might be too soon to draw conclusions about long-term trends. But there's no question that funding for programs to prevent pregnancy or lend support to teen moms has withered, said Lisa Perks, chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio.
Planned Parenthood lost about $140,000 in federal welfare money for local prevention programs and cannot serve all the teens seeking information. A multi-agency teen pregnancy-prevention task force no longer exists.
Perks said such savings always are false. A 3-year-old analysis by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy estimated that teen childbearing in Ohio costs taxpayers more than $350 million a year.
"Look at the data," she said. "They often don't finish school, they can't find jobs. Yet there's no funding."
Banner, 45, a soft-spoken mom of three, does her best to turn kids into capable parents. They need to learn so much: how to play with their babies, why anger must be kept in check, that toddlers don't care about expensive tennis shoes.
Most had parents who failed them first.
"Some of them, their stories are terrible. And their decisions are terrible," said Banner, whose teen-mom caseload went from five to 17 in less than two years. "It's trying to get them to understand: It's not about your needs. This little person depends on you."
But even in the most trying situations, Banner finds, the biggest and best building block of all usually is there. "Love," she said. "These moms do love their babies."
She visits 18-year-old Shayla Miller and her 2-year-old daughter, Askyia, each week. The apartment that Huckleberry House's transitional-living program helps to provide for up to 18 months is clean and neat; Shayla brags about Askyia's bubbly personality and growing vocabulary.
For Miller, who became pregnant at 15 while her mother was incarcerated, the modest apartment is an almost unimaginable luxury. "The toughest part was not having somewhere to stay with her," Miller said, burying her head in her hands. "She was 1, it was January, and it was cold."
Miller is back in school, and her daughter does well in day care. She calls her "Sky," she said, "because I tried to give her an important name."
Banner said she's equally proud of Miller's progress. "This job is so rewarding," she said. "But sometimes I don't sleep very much. I worry."
More teen parents need help, and the waiting list is long.
rprice@dispatch.com
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