Young Parents Program

The Young Parents Program aims to provide medical care and health education to inner city teenage parents. The goal of the program is healthy growth and development among children of teenage parents.

This program is implemented by a team that includes physicians, social workers, and a nurse and nurse practitioner. Together, these individuals provide teenage parents and their children with medical care, counseling, and health education. Parents receive lessons on positive parenting skills, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as receive help to complete their educations and secure housing for their families. Teenage health concerns such as HIV/AIDS, mental health issues, sexually transmitted diseases, and substance abuse are also addressed.

The goal of the Young Parents Program is to help inner city teenage parents learn positive attitudes, behaviors, and parenting skills so that their children experience healthy growth and development a during their early and critical years.

One study evaluated the Young Parents Program with 91 intervention participants and 54 controls. A repeated-measures analysis showed that the intervention group experienced greater improvements in their mothering role, more appropriate developmental expectations of their child, improved perception of their childbearing experience, and a reduction in the occurrence of hassles in child and family events.

Currently, the Young Parents Program serves about 250 teenage mothers, 75 teenage fathers, and 300 babies every year.