Local Program Helped Teen Father Break the Mold

By Colby Tibbet Youth Reporter

FRESNO-- As a freshman entering Roosevelt High School, Juan Bautista wanted to make a name for himself, and he did – by getting into fights, and going in and out of juvenile hall.

“I wanted to be the top dog, I wanted to put my name out there,” Bautista recalled. “I was never really involved in the community, I was more about breaking the community.”

That type of thinking is what eventually led him to join a gang in his first year of high school. Academic life, for Bautista, soon became an afterthought.

“I started putting in work. Selling drugs, transporting guns across town,” Bautista said. “As it went on, I thought to myself, I'm a thug now, I'm a gangster. I'm just gonna make money.”

Bautista’s outlaw ways skid to a halt his sophomore year, however, when his girlfriend of three months gave him a call and told him she was pregnant.

The teens had had unprotected sex two months prior, and although Bautista said they both knew about condoms, he said they didn't take birth control seriously at the time.

Nevertheless, when Bautista learned about the pregnancy, he knew it was a life changer—being a young gang-banger would not mix with being a parent. But that didn’t stop problems from arising between he and the baby’s mother, and the dysfunction escalated to a point that they eventually decided not to be together. Both, however, expressed a desire to be involved in their child’s life.

With Bautista in and out of juvenile hall, the mother eventually gained custody of the child. Bautista recalls that time as a low-point. As he would later put it, “I knew I had to step it up to be a father.”

Although the birth rate among teens nationally and locally has been declining since the early 1990’s, teen pregnancy is still a concern in low-income communities like Fresno.

According to KidsData.org, the rate of teen births in the Central Valley is nearly double the state average of 13.1 per 1,000. Many of the Central Valley counties are hovering in the 20's with Fresno County at 24.2, Kern County at 26.2, and Merced County at 23.0.

In addition, sexually transmitted infection rates in the Central Valley were higher than state averages for both chlamydia and gonorrhea. For chlamydia, the state average is 1339.5 infections per 100,000 15 to

19-year-olds. Fresno County's rate is 2032.7 infections per 100,000, 693.2 infections higher than the state average.

For gonorrhea, California's average is 185.6 per 200,000 15 to 19-year-olds, while Fresno County's is more than double the average at 416.8, according to KidsData.org.

In Fresno County, the gonorrhea infection rates among 15 to 19-year-olds have been increasing in the past three years. It jumped from 238.6 in 2010 to 416.8 in 2013. However, the chlamydia infection rates among adolescents in the same age group have not increased over time in Fresno.

With teen pregnancy and STDs still high in the valley, some community groups have begun calling attention to the relative absence of sex education in local schools, and attempting to fill the void.

One such organization is Fresno Barrios Unidos, which for the last 20 years has been providing services to teens and families in Southeast Fresno.

Barrios Unidos emphasizes teen pregnancy prevention, but also offers clinical services for STD testing and birth control. More focused efforts such as the “Teen Success” program give teen moms a support group and the indi vidual guidance they need to graduate from high school.

Another Barrios Unidos program, “Bright Futures,” lends resources and assistance to teen parents so they can learn how to create healthy relationships and environments for their children. Bautista, wanting to regain custody of his son Jordan after being released from juvenile hall, was sent to the program – and now speaks of its benefit.

“Doing these programs, my mentality was chang ing,” Bautista said. “I don't want people to go through what I had to with my son. I want people to have good healthy relationships with their families.”

180 degrees

Bautista now volunteers at Barrios Unidos, which he said has “become a passion” for him. He wants to use his expe riences as a former gang member and a teen father to help others in his community who may be in a similar situation he was in, and educate those who may be at risk.

“I started asking, ‘What can I do to start programs?’ For fathers, for gang members who want to get off the sys tem,” he said.

Bautista is also part of the organization’s youth advocacy team. His advocacy for sex education has included assisting in workshops at FUSD high schools, as well as speaking to superintendents and district officials about the need to teach safe sex and STD prevention, rather than only encouraging abstinence.

His approach to the work is to be very open with his life experiences; something he hopes will help him make stronger connections with young people in the community.

“A young man or a young woman isn’t going to listen to someone who is... 30 or 40 years old,” Bautista said. “I tell them, ‘I understand where you come from,’ and I tell them my stories.”

Although he received his high school diploma a year late, and his son is already two years old, Bautista said he doesn’t want to fall into the trap of fulfilling other people’s expectation of him.

He has hopes of eventually joining the Marine Corps, but also plans to work in the community, and aspires to become a probation or parole officer, to help guide kids