Content by Keyword: Welfare Reform/Welfare-to-Work

Child Welfare League of America. http://www.cwla.org/programs/pregprev/flocritt.htm Accessed February 2005. Cooper, Edith Fairman.  Second Chance Homes: Federal Funding, Programs, and Services.   Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, November 9, 2004. Henshaw, Stanley K.  U.S. Teenage Pregnancy Statistics W

However, some of the programs with the strictest rules may also be those that serve populations who may not be free to leave the home without consequences. For example, some homes serve primarily residents who are required to live in the home because they are in state custody or on probation, or as a condition of receiving TANF or retaining custod

Providing the level of support and comprehensive array of services that maternity homes offer can be expensive, but some programs have considerably lower per-family costs than others. As discussed in Chapter IV, the monthly operating costs of the homes in this study ranged from as little as $1,200 to as much as $8,600 per resident family. Those de

Providers of maternity group home programs often struggle with high turnover rates among residents. Although maternity group home programs typically allow residents to remain in the homes two years or longer, or until they reach an eligibility age limit, residents often leave much sooner. In many homes, staff reported that although many residents

Most of the homes in this study are part of state- or county-wide networks of similar homes. In addition, many of the homes are operated by larger social service organizations, which may also operate other maternity group homes and typically have broader missions as well. Network managing agencies and parent organizations can assist maternity grou

Maternity group homes are intensive, comprehensive support programs for pregnant and parenting young women and their children. In addition to stable housing, these homes provide a wide array of services to meet the needs of the families they serve. Supervision and rules help provide the structure teens and their children need as they develop a fou

1 Some individuals categorized here as part-time staff are actually full-time employees of the home's managing organization but spend only part of their time working for the maternity group home itself. 2 For example, homes in the Massachusetts program have father outreach workers who provide case management and other services to the fathers

An important issue to consider when examining maternity group home programs is the typical cost of serving young mothers in this setting. To fully explore this issue, it is necessary to have information both on the cost of operating the programs and on the typical amount of time residents stay in these homes. For this reason, we asked staff member

Although maternity group homes tend to offer many of the same types of services to pregnant and parenting teens, they use a variety of different staffing strategies to serve their residents. Each maternity group home program must decide how many and what types of staff to use to supervise its residents and to provide each service the home offers.

For maternity group home programs to provide the extensive set of services, structure, and supervision described in Chapter III, they must have adequate staffing and funding. The issues of staffing and funding are closely related, since staffing is by far the greatest expense for these programs. In general, the intensive services offered by these

1 The high level of supervision in the homes in this study is, in part, by design, since, as discussed in Chapter I, our definition of maternity group homes excluded programs that did not provide substantial supervision to their residents.

Maternity group homes are intensive, comprehensive support programs for pregnant and parenting young women and their children. The homes visited for this study provide an extensive array of services to the families living there. At the most basic level, all the homes provide secure housing and extensive adult supervision and structure to their res

The services described above are provided — in one way or another — by most of the homes in this study. Besides these common program features, some maternity group homes provide additional support services. These include mental health and educational assistance to current residents, follow-up services to former residents, and outreach to the

In order to attend school, work, keep appointments, and engage in other activities, young parents need logistical supports such as child care and transportation assistance. While some programs make referrals to connect their residents with outside providers for such supports, others provide logistical supports directly.

The constant presence of home staff offers residents many opportunities for informal lessons on the skills needed to parent and live independently. In addition, some of the required chores are specifically designed to give residents a chance to practice these skills. Still, most maternity group homes — and all of those visited for this study �

All the maternity group homes we visited provide case management services for their residents. While some case management may take place on an ad hoc basis, many homes require residents to attend regular individual meetings with their case manager. Such sessions are commonly scheduled once a week.

Many pregnant and parenting teens have had little structure in their lives prior to entering a maternity group home. One of the functions group homes can fill is to provide such structure. To this end, maternity group home programs provide adult supervision and establish a set of rules by which residents must live. Adult staff are on hand to provi

Probably the most fundamental need filled by maternity group homes is that of housing. Even if the other benefits of living in a maternity group home were found to have no longer-term effects on residents, the homes still succeed in the goal of providing a temporary place for pregnant and parenting teens to live. Maternity group home programs use

The potential of maternity group home programs to address the numerous problems facing pregnant and parenting teens rests in the range of services they provide to their residents. Pregnant and parenting teens and their children have a wide variety of needs. One of the most basic needs that maternity group homes can address is that of secure housin

1 In the Michigan program, although the network agency (Wayne County Family Independence Agency, which oversees the TANF program) does not oversee the referral process, TANF case workers from the agency participate in the interview and application process for all potential new residents of the homes. 2 GCAPP (the Georgia network agency) cont