FARMINGTON – Babies depend on parental care.

Local teens will have a better opportunity to experience how much babies will depend on their care when 10 new simulator dolls become available this fall.

The Franklin County Children’s Task Force was recently awarded a grant of $8,000 from the Maine Children’s Trust, said Renee Blanchet, executive director of the task force.

The money will be used to implement a teen pregnancy prevention program called “Baby Think It Over” in Franklin County and includes the purchase of 10 infant simulator dolls with the expectation of purchasing 10 more next year.

“Other counties have had great success with the program but Franklin County was one site that didn’t have it. We saw a need and will meet it,” Blanchet said.

Part of the reason for making the program available to every middle and high school in Franklin County is to help students and parents understand the realities of raising children as well as to help prevent child abuse, she said. The program is also geared toward curbing teen pregnancy, which is on the rise again after a 15-year decline, she said.

A teen-parenting class at Mt. Blue High School was using flour sacks to mimic babies while a seventh-grade health class at the middle school had some dolls but they are older, Blanchet said.

“Every child that graduates from Mt. Blue should have one of these dolls for at least 24-hours. … it’s a real eye opener,” she said.

Each doll can be programmed using 15 different 24-hour schedules based on the needs of real infants. Cycles of care include feeding, burping, rocking and diaper changing while sensors placed within the infant simulator will detect rough handling, abuses or mistreatment.

The sensors will also monitor what responses are given, such as indicating when a baby cried for 20-minutes without a response, she said.

The task force will also have a shaken baby simulator and fetal alcohol simulator for teachers to use in school and for parent education classes to show effects on a child’s brain when the child is shaken or when alcohol is abused during pregnancy.

“Students will be able to actually see what the effects of alcohol look like on a developing baby,” she said.

The grant from Maine Children’s Trust, a statewide child abuse and neglect prevention organization, will enable the task force to continue as Franklin County’s child abuse and neglect agency.

For more information on the program or other parenting programs, call the task force at 778-6960.