Nineteen-year-old Leroy has accepted his responsibility as father of his two-year-old daughter, despite his still being in school.

Leroy, who conceived the child with his now 17-year-old girlfriend, says fatherhood has made him more prepared to face life's challenges. "Being a father has actually made me more mature and a more aware person," he said. "And I'm still a honour role student."

However, Leroy said once upon a time, the police were threatening to arrest him on charges of carnal abuse and impregnating a minor. He said he found help at the Fathers' Crisis Centre, a non-profit organisation that gives legal advice and other areas of guidance to fathers.

Sympathetic

Founder of Fathers in Action and innovator of the Fathers' Crisis Centre, Lanny Davidson, said the centre helped Leroy by counselling him and providing him with a lawyer that was sympathetic to his situation.

"In situations like these, where the young man impregnated a minor, it's difficult to find a lawyer who will be on his side. Some lawyers think the boy, though a minor too when he impregnated the young girl, should be locked up for his actions," Davidson said. "They [lawyers] don't think that it may have been the girl who wanted it (sexual intercourse)."

He adds that after months of being threatened by the police, Leroy was warned about his actions and the matter was settled out of court. "So they (the police) didn't lock me up," Leroy added.

He said he visited his daughter once per month since she lives in Kingston with her mother and grandparents. "I live outside of Kingston but I still visit and bring things (such as money received from his parents) for her," he said. "When her mother is at school, the grandparents take care of her."

Leroy's parents, who in the first instance claimed the child was not his because of the teen mother's promiscuous behaviour, came to accept the child after a DNA test that proved Leroy was the child's father.

Davidson says he encounters teen fathers on a regular basis. "However, some of these fathers don't come in to the centre for advice, we usually hear about them through word of mouth," Davidson says.

"But I doubt, though, that there are as many single teen fathers as there are single teen mothers, since most boys become single fathers only when the mother is absent," he adds.