TEENAGE PARENT DEMONSTRATION

Report on Barriers to Self-Sufficiency Among Teenage Mothers

This Executive Summary was prepared by Rebecca Maynard based on a report by Denise Polit.  Funding for this project was provided by the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under contract HHS-100-86-0045.  This report does not necessarily represent the official opinion or policy of the Department of Health and Human Services.  The results of this study and the views expressed are solely those of the authors.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Background
• Teenage Parent Demonstration
• In-Depth Study
• Barriers to Self-Sufficiency and Personal Strengths
• Designing Services to Promote Self-Sufficiency

• Cover Page
• Lessons Learned

BACKGROUND

Young women who give birth during their teenage years are more likely than those who postpone childbearing to have low educational attainment and low life-time earnings.  Consequently, they are at high risk of long spells of welfare dependency and living in persistent poverty.  Recognition of teenage childbearing as a major social problem helped to lay the groundwork for recent policy innovations designed to assist young welfare mothers.

This report, which was prepared as part of the Demonstration of Innovative Approaches to Reduce Welfare Dependency Among Teenage Parents (for short, the Teenage Parent Demonstration (TPD), presents an in-depth look at the lives of poor, welfare-dependent, teenage mothers living in Chicago, Illinois, and in Camden and Newark, New Jersey.  It examines the barriers to achieving self-sufficiency for many young mothers and their experiences in addressing them.  It does so in the context of an intervention that required teenage parents to work toward self-sufficiency as a condition of their welfare eligibility and provided case management and a wide array of other services to facilitate compliance.

Through focus groups, in-depth semistructured interviews, and case conferences with program staff who had worked with teenage parents in the demonstration programs, we gained substantial insight into the barriers these young mothers faced and their personal strengths to mitigate them.  The prospects for success and the strategies for intervention varied, depending on the school status of the mothers at the time they were enrolled in the demonstration, and the resources available to support their efforts to achieve self-sufficiency.

THE TEENAGE PARENT DEMONSTRATION

The Teenage Parent Demonstration was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), and the Office of Family Assistance (OFA).  It tested the feasibility and effects of imposing obligations on teenage-parent AFDC recipients to engage in activities designed to enhance their self-sufficiency as a condition of their continued eligibility for welfare, while offering assistance to help them fulfill these obligations.  The cornerstone of the demonstration programs was case management services.  Case managers helped teenagers develop and fulfill self-sufficiency plans and monitored their compliance.  The plans focused on education, training, and employment-related services designed to improve teenagers' long-run prospects for self-sufficiency.  They also offered support services to facilitate adherence to the plans -- notably, child care and transportation assistance.  The demonstration was timely, providing considerable guidance to states implementing programs in response to the adolescent parent provisions of the Family Support Act of 1988.

The public welfare agencies in the states of Illinois and New Jersey received grants in 1986 to design and implement the demonstration programs.  The Illinois program (Project Advance) operated in the south side of Chicago, and the New Jersey program (Teen Progress) operated in the cities of Newark and Camden.  The programs began serving clients in mid-1987 and continued operations through mid-1991.

The overall demonstration evaluation involved five components:

1. An analysis of the effects of the program on those who participated, involving the random assignment of eligible mothers in the three sites to participant (enhanced-services) or nonparticipant (regular AFDC services) groups;
2. A process and implementation evaluation to document the nature of the demonstration and provide guidelines for its replication;
3. A study of child care supply and demand in the demonstration sites;
4. A study of the impacts of the program on child care needs and use; and,
5. This in-depth study of the experiences, motivations, and personal circumstances of program participants.

THE IN-DEPTH STUDY

This in-depth study provides intensive, qualitative information about the experiences, characteristics, and problems of the young mothers in the demonstration and their efforts to deal with program participation requirements.  The underlying question is: What is it about these young mothers' lives that drives them toward long-term welfare dependency, and what are the possibilities for diverting them from this path?

The study used focus group interviews, personal in-depth interviews, and case conferences with case managers and other program staff to discuss specific cases, probing deeply into areas that are difficult to tap through standard survey procedures.  These areas included the motivations these young women have to become self-sufficient; their attitudes toward work, welfare, marriage, and child rearing; their expectations and goals for the future; the barriers they encounter in attempting to achieve those goals; and their patterns of response to the program obligations and services.

Fifteen focus groups were conducted in late 1988 with young mothers drawn from the larger Teenage Parent Demonstration research sample of nearly 6,000 young mothers: six in Chicago, five in Camden, and four in Newark.  In addition, one focus group was conducted with fathers of children whose mothers were in the primary research sample.

In the fall of 1989, in-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 70 sample members in Chicago and Camden (35 per site) -- generally in the young mothers' homes.  To the extent possible, respondents were recruited from those participating in focus groups the previous year.

The final major source of information for the in-depth study was derived from an intensive review early in 1991 of 12 to 15 cases from the enhanced-services group in each of the three sites.  We first reviewed fully all materials in the case files of those selected.  Then, we convened two-day case conference sessions at each site to discuss the selected cases in detail with members of the program staff.  The cases selected for review were chosen to ensure that they represented a variety of experiences and circumstances and included young mothers whose lives had been redirected by the programs, as well as clients whom the programs did not seem to help.

Although the young women in the in-depth study were not randomly selected from the larger research sample, their background characteristics were generally very similar.  In all samples, the majority of teenagers were never-married, black mothers who had become pregnant prior to their eighteenth birthday and had not yet completed high school.  The average reading score for all groups was below the eighth-grade level.  The focus-group and in-depth interview subsamples tended to over-represent sample members in less adverse circumstances -- probably because participation in the in-depth study was voluntary and demanded significant time commitments.  Conversely, the case conference subsample tended to over-represent highly disadvantaged teens, probably because the program staff were explicitly asked to include some cases with whom they judged they had been "unsuccessful."

BARRIERS TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND PERSONAL STRENGTHS

The teenagers' entering the programs differed widely with regard to personal characteristics that appear related to their level of program participation and are likely to be related to their eventual self-sufficiency -- factors such as motivation, cognitive skills, self-esteem, and social support.  In-school youth tended to have the strongest personal resources, and dropouts tended to have the weakest, but there was variation in all groups with respect to their initial personal resources (see Exhibit 1).

Despite considerable diversity in the barriers to self-sufficiency facing these young mothers, virtually all of them faced at least some.  All lived in poverty, often in dangerous neighborhoods where the norms do not promote self-sufficiency and with families whose adult members were themselves struggling to cope with personal crises.  In addition, the teenagers in the demonstration programs were young, often lacking concrete goals and direction, and in some cases extremely immature.

The majority of the teenagers expressed an interest in employment (and a corresponding hatred of welfare), but many had extremely weak reading and language skills that are incompatible with the types of jobs to which they aspired.  Moreover, despite a generally positive orientation toward education in the abstract, many had had negative experiences in traditional school settings.

Perceptions of Child Care as a Major Barrier

A major barrier to participation in the demonstration programs was the teenagers' child care needs.  Although the program helped participants find and pay for child care, resistance to care by nonrelatives was high, primarily because the young mothers felt they could never trust a stranger to care for their children.  In the end, most were able to rely on relatives to care for their babies, and they were generally satisfied with these arrangements.

Repeat Pregnancies Undermined Progress Toward Self-Sufficiency

There was considerable agreement among these young mothers that future childbearing should either be postponed for a considerable period of time or avoided altogether.  The young mothers who wanted to postpone their next pregnancies generally said that they wanted to wait until they were more financially secure.

Many young mothers, however, acknowledged having problems with birth control and, by the time of the in-depth interviews (roughly 18 to 24 months after sample enrollment), about one-third in the sample had had a repeat pregnancy.  These repeat pregnancies, like the first ones, were almost never intentional.  The young mothers, who often had a fatalistic outlook, indicated that their pregnancies had "just happened."

Resources Facilitating Program Participation

Many of the young mothers appeared to be very resilient.  In spite of the difficult circumstances in which they were living, many were highly motivated both to better themselves and to provide their children with a better childhood than they had been given.  Furthermore, many had family support that enabled them to move forward with their lives despite their parenting responsibilities.

Almost none of the young mothers envisioned that they would become permanently dependent on welfare.  There was a strong and almost universal hatred of welfare.  According to most of these teenagers, women on welfare become addicted to receiving public assistance and, over time, their motivation and ability to become self-sufficient erodes.

Parenthood: Highly Rewarding, the Most Important "Job"

Most of the young mothers emphasized the positive aspects of having a child.  Their children provided a source of love and affection, enhanced their self-esteem, and made them feel more mature and responsible.  Given the limited rewards that many of these teenagers derive from other aspects of their lives, the benefits of motherhood seem quite powerful.

For some of these mothers, regular employment and participation in activities geared toward self-sufficiency were perceived as interfering with their parenting responsibilities.  Most teenagers, however, felt it was not only acceptable but desirable to work before their children started school, primarily because of their desire to provide for their children's material needs.

Low Compliance with Child Support Enforcement Agency

Only a handful of mothers in the samples cooperated with the state child support enforcement agency.  About half in the in-depth interview sample indicated that they continued to receive some type of assistance from the fathers of their babies, typically in the form of material goods (groceries, diapers, baby clothes) or small amounts of cash.  Yet, those who received even modest informal support from the fathers generally felt it was in their best interest to resist cooperation.  Many who received no child support stated their preference for having nothing further to do with their babies' fathers.

DESIGNING SERVICES TO PROMOTE SELF-SUFFICIENCY

Some young welfare mothers are able to become self-sufficient without intervention.  For many of them, however, the odds against success are great because of the multiple barriers they face.  This study highlighted several lessons related to designing effective programs and policies for welfare-dependent young mothers.

Mandatory Programs Are Feasible and May Be Critical

This study indicated clearly that mandatory programs for teenage mothers on welfare could be implemented without appearing to be punitive.  Negative comments about the program were rare.  Some young mothers did not need the welfare grant and so accepted the sanction or left AFDC rather than participate in the program.  The more typical response, however, was to acknowledge that the program gave them a needed "push" to get out of the house and work toward self-sufficiency.  Program staff also came to view the monetary incentive as a critical tool that enabled them to provide services to teenagers who might otherwise not have sought these services.

Financial sanctions are a powerful motivating tool.  One method of influencing teenagers' adherence to their self-sufficiency plans was the use of financial sanctions.  A substantial minority of teenagers in the in-depth study samples had been sanctioned (typically for a relatively brief period of time) or warned that they would be sanctioned if they continued to be noncompliant.  Although the teenagers were able to manage during the months when their grants were reduced, they reported that the sanctions (or the threats of sanctions) affected their behavior.  Program staff generally viewed sanctions as a useful tool for motivating teenagers to come forward for the needed services.  The sanctions were the prods that enabled staff to show the teenagers the "carrots" the program had to offer, including child care and transportation assistance, peer support, program workshops, and case management.

Young welfare mothers should be expected to participate in programs to enhance their self-sufficiency soon after their babies are born.  Delays in providing teenage mothers with needed services or in helping them to formulate long-range goals may well foster their welfare dependency.  The personal resources available to many are often fragile and may erode over time.

Sanctions alone are unlikely to prove effective in promoting active program participation or changing behavior.  Although many of the young mothers responded positively to the sanctions, continuous, active participation required considerable monitoring and assistance from program staff.  Sample members reported that they especially appreciated the program staff's care, nurturance, and willingness to work with them as individuals.

Service Needs Differ Substantially

Because the population is quite diverse the programmatic response could well be different for different teenagers, especially when resources are constrained.  For certain groups -- especially high school dropouts -- a strong, supportive intervention with close monitoring of progress seems especially appropriate.  For others, periodic monitoring may be sufficient.

High school dropouts may be most in need of intervention.  The data from the in-depth study suggest that those young women who were high school dropouts when they entered the enhanced-services program were extremely needy and at highest risk of becoming entrenched in long-term welfare dependency.  It appears that other teenagers who were enrolled in school at intake were likely to make progress toward self-sufficiency on their own -- although many of these young women also appeared to benefit from the program's assistance.

Out-of-school young mothers proved to be the most difficult subgroup to serve successfully.  A major responsibility of case managers was to identify appropriate educational or training placement or employment.  Program staff often had problems placing school dropouts, who sometimes had a checkered pattern of starting and stopping different programs or activities prior to completion.  For high school graduates, postsecondary and job-training options were generally easier to identify than employment opportunities.

Early Repeat Pregnancies: An Ongoing Concern

Helping young women who have already had one pregnancy avoid subsequent pregnancies is challenging but very important.  These young women typically assert that they do not want another child in the near future.  But a sizable percentage experience a repeat pregnancy within two years of their first child's birth.  Programs should endeavor to hire staff who are comfortable talking about sexuality and contraception with teenagers and address this issue continuously.

Addressing Limited Life Skills

Disadvantaged teenage mothers are often hampered in their efforts to achieve self-sufficiency by their limited world view and the absence of skills that most adults in our society take for granted.  To become mainstreamed into our society, these young mothers need to acquire the broader life skills that employers and other institutions expect.

Programs should address psychological barriers to self-sufficiency.  Limited self-confidence and distrustfulness, which are common among welfare-dependent teenage parents, often can be addressed through the creation of a program atmosphere in which the teenagers feel cared for and respected.  The psychological barriers faced by many of these young mothers, however, are far too complex and profound for program staff to address.  Programs need to develop linkages with mental health services and drug treatment programs so that severe problems can be referred to trained professionals.

A Special -- and Separate -- Intervention

Teenagers are most likely to respond to an intervention that is developmentally appropriate -- one recognizing that these young mothers are barely more than children and require considerable structure and discipline in their lives.  Although welfare mothers of all ages share many things with respect to the barriers they face in achieving self-sufficiency, young mothers need special help to surmount those barriers.  Their needs are likely to get lost if they are integrated into an adult program.

Strong Case Management Is Essential

Because of the complex needs and diversity of this population, strong case management appears to be an essential feature of a successful intervention strategy.  Services for young welfare mothers need to be individualized and modified over time.  This individualization can best be accomplished if a single staff person -- a case manager or continuous counselor -- becomes familiar with and has ongoing responsibility for the teenager.

Case management services were almost universally appreciated by the young mothers.  Despite the fact that many young mothers had been sanctioned or warned that they would be sanctioned, their feelings about the program were generally extremely positive.  Praise for the personal and caring attention of case managers and other program staff was especially high.  Case managers linked the teenagers to the services they needed, monitored their progress in the program, offered advice and guidance for personal problems, and provided much-needed support and encouragement.  For many young mothers, the case managers served as role models or surrogate parents.

Addressing Fears and Concerns

Many of the young mothers in the enhanced-services program took advantage of child care that was paid for through program funds, but others did not.  By preference, the majority of the teenagers in the in-depth sample who were active participants in a program component relied on unpaid relative care.

Program staff should assist the teenagers in understanding what to look for when they are selecting a child care arrangement.  Then, when possible, they should offer to accompany the teenager on a visit to the provider, or at least be sufficiently knowledgeable about potential providers to give information or respond to questions.  Program staff also need to evaluate the teenagers' child care situation continuously.  Arrangements with relatives often break down for a variety of reasons, and alternate arrangements may need to be found.

View of a Young Mother

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