Abstract
The changing social context surrounding teen parenting, including its much lower incidence, has created unique challenges for teens who are transitioning to parenthood. In response to the ongoing needs of teen parents, state and federal agencies have continued to fund programs that aim to prevent teen pregnancy and support teens who become parents. One such program was the Education, Employment, and Engagement (E3) Teen Parenting Program, which linked existing social service programs into a coordinated network to support teen parents and their families. Working with families in the context of this program revealed some important insights about the experience of navigating social systems as a teen parent. We found that the broader social and political contexts of teen parenthood were reflected in the day-to-day interactions among teen parents, their partners, their families, their schools, and stakeholders in the programs designed to serve their needs. In this chapter, we use an ecological perspective to explore the systems that shape the prenatal hopes and postnatal realities of teen families and offer suggestions for targeted interventions for this population.
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Acknowledgments
The preparation of this chapter was aided by the efforts of Peter Durso and Amelia Hasbun, who were instrumental in the collection and management of program data, respectively. We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Janis Lilly, whose insight about teen parents from a practitioner perspective informed the recommendations for interventions targeted toward teen parents.
This work was made possible by Grant Number SP1AH000027 from the HHS Office of Adolescent Health. Contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the office views of the Department of Health and Human Services or the Office of Adolescent Health.
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Jamison, T.B., Feistman, R.E. (2021). Understanding Teen Parents in a Modern Context: Prenatal Hopes and Postnatal Realities. In: Kuersten-Hogan, R., McHale, J.P. (eds) Prenatal Family Dynamics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51988-9_16
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