 
YES! - YOUTH EMPOWERMENT STRATEGIES FOR ALL
Working With Pregnant and Parenting Youth
Facing the challenges
More than 800,000 young women under the age of 20 become pregnant each year in the United States, and in 2003 the adolescent birth rate was 42 births per 1,000 adolescent girls. Having a child as an adolescent has serious affects on the health, education, and economic well-being of young parents. Young mothers are less likely than their peers to complete high school or college, and some research has shown that young fathers leave school earlier than other young men. Further, teenagers who give birth once are at much greater risk to give birth again while still teenagers. The children of adolescents have a high risk of being born premature and of living in poverty.
Many young people who become parents before age 20 come from disadvantaged backgrounds or have been physically or sexually abused. With the added stresses of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, these youth need large amounts of support, comprehensive services, and solid adult role models to help them transition into adulthood, raise healthy children, and support themselves and their families.
Tips for working with pregnant and parenting youth:
- Provide pregnancy prevention and family planning services for non-parenting youth at risk for early sexual activity and young mothers and fathers at risk for additional pregnancies; involve other youth as "peer educators."
- Provide abstinence education for non-parenting youth at risk for sexual activity.
- Create programs, such as tutoring, career awareness, and job training that give youth better life options and decisionmaking skills and motivate them not to take sexual risks.
- Help pregnant adolescents and, when appropriate, their partners consider choices and supports available to them, such as adoption, housing options including living in a maternity group home or with parents, and relationship counseling.
- Be patient and supportive if pregnant youth and their partners waver back and forth in making decisions about the pregnancy and their own futures.
- Engage the families of pregnant and parenting youth and encourage them to support the young people as much as possible.
- Help pregnant youth get adequate health care and nutrition for a healthy pregnancy and childbirth both while they are in your program and afterward.
- Provide comprehensive services, both for adolescent mothers and fathers, that go beyond pregnancy services and parenting training to include education (e.g., onsite GED programs), job training and placement, child care, family counseling, sexual abuse and domestic violence counseling, and life skills education.
- Provide adult-supervised or semi-supervised housing for parenting youth. (To qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, minor parents must live in an adult-supervised setting such as with their families or in a group home or transitional living program.)
- Don't assume that the birth of a child makes a young person automatically ready for parenthood; young mothers and fathers need adult guidance and support from program staff, family members, and formal and informal mentors.
- Give pregnant and parenting youth some control over their lives by involving them in creating their own treatment plans and setting program rules.
- Provide abstinence education for parenting youth who are at risk for subsequent pregnancies and other consequences of sexual activity.
- Provide onsite childcare during program activities, such as GED or parenting classes, so that young parents can keep their children in sight.
- Plan activities that adolescent mothers and fathers can do with their children, such as fitness classes and art projects.
- Help youth access social services programs for low-income families, such as TANF and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, also called WIC.
Resources
CWLA Standards of Excellence for Services for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, Pregnant Adolescents, and Young Parents. Author: Child Welfare League of America. 1998. Available from Child Welfare League of America, www.cwla.org.
The Implementation of Maternity Group Home Programs: Serving Pregnant and Parenting Teens in a Residential Setting. Authors: L. Hulsey, R. Wood, and A. Rangarajan. 2005. Available from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Room 404E, 200 Independence Ave SW, Washington, DC 20201.
Web
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
The Institute for Youth Development
HHS Office of Population Affairs
National Abstinence Clearinghouse
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
Working With Pregnant and Parenting Youth was developed by the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY) for the Family and Youth Services Bureau; Administration on Children, Youth and Families; Administration for Children and Families; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For more information on positive ways to work with youth, please go to http://ncfy.acf.hhs.gov, or contact NCFY at (301) 608-8098 or ncfy@acf.hhs.gov.