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Areas of Work

Improving Outcomes For Adolescents
Contact(s): Sally Leiderman and Sam Stephens

Adolescence is a dynamic stage of human development. At this time in life, young people are growing and changing in multiple ways - physically, cognitively, socially and emotionally. These changes result in the adolescent's need to become more independent, connect with his or her peers and exert more control and power over his or her life. The quest for more independence and self-power often is associated with the onset of risky behavior - detachment from school, smoking, sexual activity, violence and experimentation with drugs and alcohol are all life experiences that often take place during the adolescent years.

In order for youth to successfully navigate this period of rapid personal development and reach their full potential, they must be able to make decisions, interact with their peers and adults appropriately and handle their own emotions. Most importantly, young adults need reasons to postpone early childbearing as well as specific skills and opportunities to succeed in school and the workforce. This requires comprehensive youth development programming at the national, state and local levels to ensure that teens move through this period of life safely and as healthy as possible. Our work aims to assist community groups and other institutions to build and expand on supports for teens as a whole as well as for special groups of teens.

Our work is often aimed at helping families, schools, communities and states strengthen their abilities to provide these factors, supports and environments for the broadest possible number of children. We do this in many ways in many projects. A major focus of CAPD's work is on issues related to positive development broadly defined (being healthy and thriving rather than simply avoiding poor outcomes) for young children. Sometimes these issues are considered under the rubric of "school readiness," but our approach is to help the program, agency or community with which we are working to understand how the experiences and conditions of young children, even prior to birth, help set the stage for their success in the early years of school. Our work in this area includes measurement and tracking of early childhood and early school outcomes as well as strategic planning for comprehensive approaches to program development and system change. It sometimes focuses on particular groups of children such as children of color and those born to young (adolescent) parents.

All Teens

CAPD's work in this area aims to ensure that youth, often youth at-risk due to poverty or minority status, have access to safe environments, opportunities to build self-esteem and decision-making skills, higher education and job opportunities. This involves supporting the development of community-wide plans to address issues of youth violence as well as specific strategies to facilitate school success and progression among young adults.

Teen Parents

Teen parents and their children are of concern to those addressing problems related to poverty. While teen parents represent only a small portion of the current welfare caseload, the vast majority of people who are on welfare begin their child bearing as adolescents. Furthermore, nearly half of all poor children under six are born to teenagers

CAPD is involved in a series of projects to support young families. Much of our work in this area aims to facilitate three core outcomes - increased self-sufficiency (namely through academic success/progression and work experience); increased parenting skills; and age-appropriate development for the children of teen parents. Comprehensive strategies are necessary to achieve these outcomes for adolescent parents and their children - as such, CAPD works with communities to develop multi-pronged approaches. Most recently, we've been involved in a series of projects to expand the scope and scale of comprehensive school-based programs for teen parents and their offspring. In addition, we are exploring ways in which communities are responding to teen parent living provisions in TANF and developing supported living arrangements for young parents who can not live at home.

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