Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, every year students walk across NWT graduation stages with a spectrum of stories of what it took to accomplish this milestone. In my graduating class, a handful of my peers who walked the graduation stage just a few blocks from here had the most special dates to honour the effort they made to get there. Mr. Speaker, their dates were their babies.
Since 2016, an average of roughly 36 babies are born to teen parents in the Northwest Territories. That is 36 young parents potentially working to achieve a pivotal milestone with their peers. Pursuing education as a parent at any age is an accomplishment but doing it as a teen is a monumental accomplishment, Mr. Speaker. While there are champions that helped keep the doors to education open for those parents I graduated with, barriers to their success that existed then persist today.
Mr. Speaker, supporting the education of teen parents is not a foreign concept in schools. Here in Yellowknife, before my time, Ecole St. Patrick High School had an in-care daycare where students could drop off their child as they ran to class. Paired with child care, parents took family life health, a full credit class that provided support, financial literacy, and healthy family learning to teen parents. Decades ago, Inuvik's Samuel Hearne Secondary School, now East 3 Secondary School, also had an in-school child care and supports.
Today, decades after these programs have disappeared, Sir John Franklin High School has revived some programming for young parents. Thursday afternoons, the school hosts a support group for moms, dads, and parents-to-be who are continuing their high school education. Here, people can access peer and experience supports, public health visits, cooking classes, and guest speakers. But access to education for young parents relies on a parent's ability to access both the space and funding for child care. Space is a big barrier especially in today's child care landscape and given the short turnaround between birth and return to school. But accessing the child care funding is a barrier this government can address today.
Funding through income assistance requires that a person be an NWT resident and over 19 years of age. This criteria closes the door for teen parents. The second funding option is a voluntary service agreement with child and family services. The historical stigma closes this door for so many parents. For some youth, child care is a significant barrier to education. Today I am asking education to create a safe, accessible door where teen parents can get funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.