The Beat: Pregnant and Parenting Youth
“Adolescent Motherhood and Capital: Interaction Effects of Race/Ethnicity on Harsh Parenting” (abstract). Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 41, No. 1. (January 2013.)
What it’s about: Researchers from Temple University wanted to know whether a mother’s age and other factors, like the level of social support she has and whether her child’s father is involved in his or her upbringing, influence the mother’s interactions with her children. To find the answer, the researchers surveyed young mothers 19 and younger and mothers 26 and older--a total of 4,700 women.
...
May marks National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month, a time when youth-serving professionals aim to curb teen and unplanned pregnancy by teaching young people about the consequences of sex.
As in years past, the month will kick off with The National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy sponsored by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. An online quiz asking teens to respond to hypothetical scenarios will be released May 1 on the StayTeen.org website to prompt discussions about sex and pregnancy.
You can learn about events in your area on the...
Homeless youth are more likely than the general teen and young adult population to get pregnant or contract an STD. But most STD and pregnancy prevention programs are designed for youth who live at home and go to school regularly. A group of researchers in the Los Angeles area, mostly at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, have been studying the attitudes and behaviors that may make homeless youth more likely to have risky sex. Their work, recently published in a trio of papers, sheds light on some of things public health workers and health educators might be able to do to tailor prevention programs to this vulnerable population.
Using a combination of interviews and surveys with homeless youth...
Last week, NCFY shared several ways for youth-serving organizations to participate in National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on March 10. In the spirit of the day, we’ve rounded up some resources geared toward young, HIV-positive women who find themselves pregnant.
- AIDSinfo, a service of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, offers a series of pregnancy fact sheets with topics ranging from anti-HIV medications to reducing the potential transmission of HIV during labor and delivery.
- The Center for...
As the federal government continues to work to end family homelessness, the Administration for Children & Families has made it a priority for early childhood education programs like Head Start to serve homeless children.
To support this goal, ACF recently shared its top recommendations and resources for Head Start providers. We think youth workers will find this information helpful as they help teen parents enroll their children in Head Start and similar early-childhood programs. We also noticed several recommendations that can help youth-serving agencies join the conversation and...
“Using GIS to Enhance Programs Serving Emancipated Youth Leaving Foster Care” (abstract), Evaluation and Program Planning, Vol. 35, No. 1 (2012).
What it’s about: Researchers at the University of South Florida wanted to see if computer mapping could help youth workers find appropriate housing for youth about to live on their own. Using geographic information systems, or GIS, technology to present information visually, the authors identified low-cost, bus-accessible housing options that would support the educational goals and parenting needs of transitioning youth....
You may have seen the headlines last fall: Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that girls with below-average reading ability went on to become teen mothers nearly twice as often as girls with average reading ability. The finding was presented at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting last year and will be published in the paper “Pre-Teen Literacy and Subsequent Teenage Childbearing in a U.S. Population,” forthcoming in the February 2013 volume of the journal Contraception.
We wanted to know more, especially about what the correlation between low...
In our latest podcast, we talk to Dr. Carl Lejuez, a University of Maryland researcher who uses a video game to study why and when people take risks. We asked about his findings and their implications for traumatized youth.
The federal government, including the Family and Youth Services Bureau, continues to encourage the use of evidence-based practices in social services programming. If you’re looking for practices and programs to use in your organization, research is a key first step.
To get you started, we’re listing some online databases and guides that highlight youth-serving programs researchers have deemed effective. You’ll want to read about each resource more carefully to learn about the criteria it uses to decide whether or not to include an intervention.
- The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s...
Minority youth tend to face more negative consequences from having sex—things like sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy—than do their white peers. Three recent studies explore some of the potential reasons for this difference to see how programs can help minority teens make healthier choices.
Knowledge Is Power
Two sets of researchers conducted studies of minority youth to see what they knew about topics like condoms, HIV/AIDS, and unplanned pregnancy. One group looked at characteristics of participants based on their answers to a survey, while the other conducted focus groups to see what young people had to say...
Sign up
Follow us
Like us
Sign up for our RSS feeds: 
