Contact Name
Barbara Dietsch
562-985-9488

Contact Email
bdietsc@WestEd.org

Michael Dalmat, Dr.P.H., Director
Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

In September 1995, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded cooperative agreements to 13 community-wide coalitions partnership programs in support of their work with youth to delay pregnancy and childbearing. The purpose of these programs is to:

Demonstrate that community partners, in communities with a population of 200,000 or more, can mobilize and organize community resources in support of community-wide, comprehensive, effective, and sustainable programs for the prevention of initial and repeat teen pregnancies.

The community-wide coalition partnership programs are located in the following cities: Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Jacksonville, Florida; Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Orlando, Florida; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Rochester, New York; San Antonio, Texas; San Bernardino, California; and Yakima, Washington.

The first phase of the work (October 1995-September 1997) entailed conducting a community needs and assets assessment, mobilizing, engaging, and organizing communities, and developing a community action plan. During the second phase (October 1997-September 2002), communities have continued to define their primary audiences (youth) and secondary audiences (those that influence and support youth); specify the intervention programs and components that will be used in each neighborhood, and community-wide, to address the needs of these audiences as related to the delay of pregnancy and childbearing, and related problems; and to enhance or initiate partnerships to implement, expand, enhance, and replicate locally these interventions. In each city, participants include a wide array of community-based organizations, providers, businesses, religious organizations, media, civic organizations, elected and other leaders, youth and grass roots citizen groups, and government agencies. The capacity of these partner organizations is being built through training and continuous improvement through on-going evaluation.

Programs are becoming increasingly comprehensive, with two foci. The first focus, Youth Development, involves building the special talents of youth in areas of personal interest. It also means cultivating their leadership skills and helping youth to acquire job skills, get jobs, and have success on the job. Youth are also acquiring prevention skills (e.g., goal setting and planning, interpersonal communications, anger management, limit setting, negotiations, and relationship building) through family life and planning education through school health education and after school programs; educational enhancement; community service; and role modeling. The second focus, Creation of Supportive Environments, includes enhancing constructive parent-child communications, school policies and norms, community opinion leader support, constructive dialogue between individuals and groups, and recognizing and rewarding the positive contributions of youth.

The programs in the 13 cities are helping youth to develop themselves, which strengthens their self-esteem, confidence, and willingness to work hard for their own futures. The assertion of these programs is that the asset building approach to youth development described above provides significant incentives for youth to remain abstinent and delay pregnancies and childbearing, and prevent related problems. Within this context, the programs strongly promote abstinence for all youth. For youth who are sexually active, these programs also promote the consistent and effective use of contraceptives, and are trying to improve access to family planning counseling and services.

As this is a demonstration program, CDC has created a learning community with a strong sense of shared purpose among the 13 community partners, CDC's contractors, national partners, and staff. Great emphasis is being given to progress and process evaluation, and the documentation of lessons learned so that the experiences of these 13 cities can be effectively shared in the future with other communities.