Program helps Grants teens cope with difficult issues

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — A program that presents information to preteens and early teenagers about a myriad of topics, including preventing pregnancy, improving self-esteem and how to say no to drugs is currently under way at the Future Foundations Family Center here.

Center Executive Director Laura Malaj said the center received a $48,000 grant from the state to conduct the program, which will be offered three days a week through the end of the school year in May 2008.

“We have the fifth-highest teen pregnancy rate in the state according to state statistics,” Malaj said. “We also have a high substance abuse rate and high rates of delinquency.“

The program is open only to pupils in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, and the program is still taking participants, she said.

There are 39 classroom topics including learning how to improve relationships: friendships, boy-girl relationships, and relationships with family members; influences: who influences the preteen or the teen, and peer pressure; communication and assertiveness: how to say no, especially to those peers who want the student to take drugs, how to communicate with people without making them angry.

Dealing with teen pregnancy is a problem here, and this program will address the topic of how to prevent teen pregnancy, Malaj said.

Goal setting is also included in the program and includes teaching students how to set short- and long-term goals, she said.

About 15 students are already participating in the program.

“We want parents and teachers to come see us and refer students to us, but we cannot make a student come to the program,” Malaj said.

“This is an age group that is trying to find themselves and one of the things we will be doing is letting them select a community service project that they want to do,” she said.

Malaj may be reached at (505) 285-3542. The center is at 551 W. Washington St.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin, call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.