In the Teenage Parent Demonstration, case managers assessed participants’ needs and developed individualized self-sufficiency plans for participants to access education, training, and employment services. Participants were teenage AFDC recipients who were first-time parents. The program included workshops focused on personal and parenting skills, and preparation for education, training, and work. The program required participants to receive these services while they were receiving AFDC. If they did not comply, participants’ cash assistance was reduced by the amount that AFDC normally allocated to support the needs of the parent. The Teenage Parent Demonstration operated in Newark, NJ; Camden, NJ; and Chicago, IL.
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Summary
The Teenage Parent Demonstration provided education, training, and supportive services to teenage first-time parents who were recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).
Populations and employment barriers: Cash assistance recipients, Parents
Populations and employment barriers: Cash assistance recipients, Parents
Populations and employment barriers: Cash assistance recipients, Parents
Effectiveness rating and effect by outcome domain
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| Outcome domain | Term | Effectiveness rating | Effect in 2018 dollars and percentages | Effect in standard deviations | Sample size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Increase earnings | Short-term |  |
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| Long-term | |
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| Very long-term | |
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| Increase employment | Short-term | |
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| Long-term | |
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| Very long-term | |
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| Decrease benefit receipt | Short-term | |
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| Long-term | 
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$-226 per year
|
-0.082 | 4252 | |
| Very long-term | |
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| Increase education and training | All measurement periods | |
* This intervention was assessed as supported for this domain, meaning it achieved one or more statistically significant, favorable effects. However, the intervention has an average effect size that is unfavorable because the average includes all effects in this domain - both statistically significant and favorable effects and statistically insignificant but unfavorable effects.
Effectiveness rating key:
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Well-supported
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Supported
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Not supported
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Mixed support
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Insufficient evidence
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No evidence
Studies of this intervention
| Study quality rating | Study counts per rating |
|---|---|
 High
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3 |
Implementation details
Dates covered by study
The demonstration sites served participants from fall 1987 to early 1991. The study followed participants for six years.
Organizations implementing intervention
The agencies administering AFDC in Illinois and New Jersey designed and implemented their own programs in this demonstration. The Illinois Department of Public Aid operated the site in Chicago, called Project Advance. The program in New Jersey was called Teen Progress; the Camden County Board of Social Services operated a site in Camden, and the Bureau of Employment Programs, under New Jersey’s Division of Economic Assistance, operated a site in Newark.
Populations served
The Teenage Parent Demonstration served teenagers who were first-time parents and receiving AFDC. The teenagers were either the heads of their own AFDC case or were minors living with their parents or guardians. The Chicago site also served teenagers receiving AFDC who had no children yet but were in their third trimester of pregnancy. Participation was mandatory. Teenage parents receiving AFDC were required to attend a program intake session during which they were randomly assigned to receive the demonstration program services or receive AFDC services as usual.
The average age of participants across the 3 sites at enrollment was 18.4. About 5 percent of participants were age 15 or younger, 24 percent were 16 to 17, 65 percent were 18 to 19, and 5.5 percent were 20 or older. However, there were differences among the sites; for example, 10 percent of participants in Camden were younger than 16, compared with 5 percent in Newark and 3 percent in Chicago.
Across the sites, about three-quarters of participants were Black, non-Hispanic; 17 percent were Hispanic; and 8 percent were White, non-Hispanic. The majority of participants (92 percent) were never married and were not living with a partner. Less than 4 percent of participants lived with the father of their child. About 30 percent of participants received any child support from the noncustodial father, but only 17 percent received child support regularly. A little less than half of participants (48 percent) were living with a parent.
Description of services implemented
The Teenage Parent Demonstration assigned participants to a case manager who helped them develop and adhere to a service plan geared toward obtaining and maintaining employment. Service plans included the following activities:
- Soft skills workshops. Participants attended initial workshops to prepare for education, training, employment, and becoming a parent. Topics included parenting, family planning, health and nutrition, employment, and what study authors referred to as motivation. The Camden site had workshops on personal grooming and a pre-employment workshop for participants not attending school. The Newark site offered an HIV/drug abuse workshop. The Chicago site workshops covered child support enforcement and prenatal support. Special workshops at the Chicago site discussed rape and sexual assault, problem-solving, and personal grooming.
- Education. The program offered or referred participants to GED classes and other adult basic education or remedial courses. The sites in New Jersey offered classes on site; the site in Chicago referred participants to GED courses in the community and offered education preparation workshops for participants having difficulty in school.
- Employment and training. Although the sites offered on-site job readiness workshops and counseling, they tended to refer to external community agencies such as vocational schools, private employers, and proprietary schools for job skills training. Partway through the demonstration, the New Jersey program stationed a job counselor in the program office to serve both the Camden and Newark sites. The Camden site hosted job fairs on site, and the case managers and GED instructors in the Newark site identified training providers and appropriate job openings for participants ready for employment. The Chicago site provided employment-readiness services on site and sought job training and work experience for participants in the community. It also provided job clubs and an independent job search program on site. All three sites placed participants in job training courses funded by the Job Training Partnership Act of 1982, which provided federal assistance to employment programs helping young people and people facing barriers to employment.
- Supportive services. All three sites provided child care payments for licensed or approved day care providers. The sites in Chicago and Newark had child care rooms on site. Camden had a full-time staff person on site to help parents address child care needs. The three sites also offered transportation assistance. The transportation stipend in New Jersey also covered daily lunches. All programs provided financial assistance for training and education expenses, including uniforms, tools, and registration fees.
Participants who did not enroll or comply with participation requirements faced sanctions—their AFDC grant was reduced by the amount meant to cover the parent’s needs—until they started complying. Forty to 50 percent of participants in New Jersey and 30 percent of participants in Chicago faced sanctions at least one time during the program.
Service intensity
About 90 percent of all eligible teenagers complied with the requirement to report to program intake. Of those who were assigned to the intervention group, 92 percent engaged in some program activity.
Camden’s workshops involved 78 hours of classroom activity over about 5 weeks, and Newark’s workshops took about 97 hours over about 3 months. Individual workshops ranged from 6 total hours to 54 total hours, depending on the topic. About 45 percent of participants in New Jersey completed at least 1 of the required workshops. Chicago’s workshops were 9 hours spread over 3 consecutive days, and more than 90 percent of participants completed at least part of the workshop series. Each workshop in Chicago was 1.5 hours.
The Teenage Parent Demonstration required participants to engage for 30 hours per week in education, training, or employment. Study authors noted challenges with maintaining ongoing participation, indicating programs kept 30 to 50 percent of participants active in program activities each month. The authors also noted increased employment and training engagement with cohorts later in the evaluation period, which they said likely reflects the programs’ growing focus on employment and stronger links with their communities.
Comparison conditions
The Teenage Parent Demonstration used a randomized controlled trial. All first-time parents starting to receive AFDC completed a questionnaire and a Test of Adult Basic Education assessment before being randomly assigned. Participants assigned to the comparison group received standard AFDC services and sanctions. Comparison group members were not required to participate in education, training, or employment-related activities to receive AFDC, but they could pursue such activities on their own. Comparison group members could not access the specific services that were part of the Teenage Parent Demonstration.
Partnerships
Partners that helped lead the workshops at the programs included community-based nonprofits and organizations, community health providers, and local and state agencies. Community colleges, universities, and community-based nonprofits and organizations provided educational services. The New Jersey Department of Personnel provided on-site GED and adult basic education class instructors in Camden. In Newark, the Newark Board of Education sponsored on-site remedial education and GED classes. The program in Chicago referred students to GED programs in the community.
Proprietary schools and public vocational and technical schools partnered with the program sites to offer occupational job training.
Staffing
The three sites had similar staffing structures, including a site manager, supervisors, and case managers. Both New Jersey sites had a case management supervisor or assistant site manager that oversaw 5 case managers. The Chicago site had 10 case managers that were divided into 2 units. Each unit had a supervisor that reported to the site manager.
In Chicago, case managers completed two weeks of training focused on adolescent health risks, pregnancy prevention, employment challenges specific to teenage parents, child support enforcement, adolescent development, and procedures and data collection for the demonstration. They also participated in 20 to 30 days of additional training covering similar topics during the demonstration.
In New Jersey, case managers completed four days of training focused on intake and participant data collection procedures. During the demonstration, case managers participated in additional trainings, including working with teenage parents and case management techniques.
Each site also had on-site specialists as part of their case management staff who worked with participants on targeted activities. The Chicago site had an employment specialist and an education specialist. The Camden site had a training counselor and a job developer. The Newark site had an employment training counselor. In addition, the New Jersey program had GED instructors and child care counselors to help participants learn about and find available child care options. One full-time job counselor from the New Jersey Department of Labor Employment Service provided services at the program office in Newark.
Sites had clerical staff to assist with administrative tasks, such as scheduling intakes, monitoring attendance, monitoring sanction status, entering data, and authorizing payments for child care and transportation.
Fidelity measures
The study did not discuss any tools to measure fidelity to the intervention model.
Funding source
The Teenage Parent Demonstration was funded by the Administration for Children and Families and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Cost information
The average cost per participant was $4,176 in 2018 dollars.
This figure is based on cost information reported by authors of the study or studies the Pathways Clearinghouse reviewed for this intervention. The Pathways Clearinghouse converted that information to a single amount expressed in 2018 dollars; for details, see the FAQ. Where there are multiple studies of an intervention rated high or moderate quality, the Pathways Clearinghouse computed the average of costs reported across those studies.
Cost information is not directly comparable across interventions due to differences in the categories of costs reported and the amount of time interventions lasted. Cost information is not an official price tag or guarantee.
State(s) where implemented
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