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Journal Article This editorial shares lessons learned from providing a parenting intervention, employment support, an internship, case management, and behavioral health services to young fathers in a community-based program, FatherWorks (an adaptation of Supporting Father Involvement), designed to reduce unintended pregnancies. These lessons were identified through monthly team meetings over the course of a six-year grant from the Personal Responsibility Education Innovative Strategies Program of the Family and Youth Services Bureau. (Author abstract modified)
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Journal Article The majority of teen pregnancy literature and practice is deficit based, focusing on the consequences of teen pregnancy; significantly less research is devoted to the teens’ strengths. This article discusses the strengths-based perspective as a viable framework for clinicians and school social workers to implement to help teen parents and their families ameliorate some of the challenges they encounter. This article emphasizes the importance of clinicians, school social workers, and the community to adopt a strengths-based perspective when working with teen parents in order to cultivate…
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Journal Article Young parents (less than 25 years of age) have been shown to have especially low rates of father involvement and union stability. However, research has also shown that parenting experiences of young fathers may not be uniform. There is a need for more research that assesses both the multidimensionality of relationship typologies and their temporality. Using a large longitudinal sample of low-income, young mothers enrolled in a randomized control study of a home-visitation program (n = 704; 61% program, 39% control), we evaluated how mother-father relationship dynamics changed over time. Ten…
This annual report for 2008-2009 describes the activities and outcomes of the Parents Too Soon (PTS) programs, intensive home visiting programs in Illinois that aim to maximize the abilities of teen parents to care for their children and continue their own development. All PTS programs provide long-term home visiting services (3 to 5 years) to teen parents and their young children using one of three nationally recognized research based models: Healthy Families America, Parents As Teachers, and Nurse Family Partnership model. In addition, 12 of the 22 programs receive supplemental funding to…
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Journal Article This article explains about 9% of American men become fathers before their twentieth birthday, challenges home visiting programs face in reaching out to fathers in high-needs communities, and tips that home vising programs can use to help engage fathers in home visiting and in parenthood. Tips include defining fatherhood, providing relationship education, and working with fathers’ schedules and commitments.
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Journal Article The article focuses on a review of a research on the problems of teenage fathers and recommendations on public policy and clinical practice concerning the support to adolescent parents. The authors discuss the service needs of teenage fathers such as educational support services, evaluations of services for young adult fathers such as the Texas Fragile Families Initiative (TFFI), and educational activities concerning the prevention of early pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STD). (Author abstract)
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Journal Article This special issue focuses on teen parenthood and includes articles that address the developmental trajectory for children born to teenage parents, protective factors for teen parents and their children, intervention efforts to promote resiliency, and the experiences of infants of teenage parents. An introductory article discusses the risks associated with adolescent parenthood and community-based strategies to support young families. The following article reviews findings from large national studies on the effects of early care and intervention on the children of adolescents. The next…
This chapter identifies developmental factors associated with positive fathering among 179 young, high-risk fathers who made a better than expected adjustment to parenthood. Results found that despite significant individual and social disadvantages, these fathers developed relational capacities associated with positive parenting. These capacities include a growth-oriented perspective on the co-parenting relationship, a commitment to shared responsibility for taking care of the co-parenting relationship, and a willingness to empathize with their co-parenting partners. Case studies illustrate…
This chapter focuses on the construction of risk indices and their use in predicting correlates of child maltreatment by exploring the relationship between the indices and the outcome measures of the Adolescent Parent Services Evaluation. This 3-year evaluation, which began in the fall of 1987, compared seven new parent programs in seven States offering education support services for pregnant and parenting adolescents. A total of 488 adolescents participated in the study. Using a nonequivalent control group design with each site serving as a comparison group for the others, researchers…
This final report discusses the Teen Parent Program, which provided a continuum of services to reduce child abuse and neglect and to strengthen the families of teenage parents. The project addressed a number of problems teen parents face: weak family structure and support; low levels of self-sufficiency and self-esteem; and lack of family planning, medical care, information on parenting, and parent-child interaction. The program consisted of 4 basic components. These components were: a family care specialist, teaching child development and home management, and providing transportation and in-…
