Changing our approach to teen parents?

By chance I happened upon a Teenage Parent Evidence Brief produced for Oranga Tamariki (OT) and published last August.

It is well known now that the teenage birthrate has been plummeting since 2008. This trend is happening across English-speaking countries. Oddly the paper rails against 'stigmatising' teen birth and recommends that adults 'normalise adolescent sex, contraception, and parenting'. I don't know why we should change the current approach which includes...

1/ financial support through the Young Parent Payment which the paper describes as:

obligations to participate in the service and in formal study
financial incentives
sanctions for failing to meet obligations
access to childcare payments.

It also involves money management - a payment card for necessity purchases with minimal cash provided.

2/ teen parent units in secondary schools

3/ and good access to effective contraception

...when the rate is falling so fast.

And for those who will immediately (and understandably) ask what's happening to the teen abortion rate...

My only real point of interest in the brief was a couple of graphs on p15 which show teen parents with an OT 'statutory' or 'report of concern' history are also in decline, just not as rapidly. Unsurprising.