Leisha is a 17 year old girl who has a young infant daughter Tippa aged 15 months. Her partner left the relationship before Leisha had the baby and hasn’t been seen or heard of since. Leisha lives at home with her parents. Initially Leisha was very scared about having a baby, and although she went to all the prenatal classes, she wondered what was going to happen with her life.

Leisha decided to stay at school despite having her baby because she felt that she needed to be able to have something to fall back on for the future, and without this education she would have difficulties getting jobs. Leisha had had very productive meetings with the school principal, the school’s career guidance counsellor, her teachers and friends at school and in her local church group and she believes that she has made the right decision. Leisha also recognised that she needed lots of help and she rallied her family and friends to give her support. This made her feel a lot less anxious.

Her parents after the initial shock committed themselves to supporting their daughter and they were just so elated when Tippa was born and they became grandparents. Leisha was loved and supported and comforted by everyone before and after her pregnancy, and Leisha has been getting really good grades at school. Leisha wants to go to the local TAFE and study to be a Chef as she loves cooking and being creative and plans to open her own restaurant one day. Leisha has also been seeing a counsellor once every few weeks, and she has found this has helped her to understand her parenting role, to take charge of her life and to plan out what she is going to do in the immediate future.

Leisha loves going out with her friends and has a very active social life which her parents happily support. Leisha also does some part-time work on weekends at the local café.

What can we make of Leisha’s story?

His situation could have turned out so differently and have had many negative consequences. Fortunately Leisha has a strong sense of who she is and what she wants to do. She was anxious at first about having the baby and being a sole parent, but she has such a great social support network that any challenges that she has met she has been easily able to deal with.

Her parents, friends and teachers are all part of Leisha’s support team and Leisha has built up lots of resilience evidenced by having excellent internal and external resources and that she is not afraid to seek out help when she needs it.