The Inwood House Research Group was launched in 1995 with Teen Choice demonstration grant funding by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Office of Population Affairs. Additional funds to begin an expanded Teen Choice study were awarded in 1998 by the Department's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Population. Today the Research Group is fully integrated within Inwood House to assess all programs and is funded entirely by private sources. The Research Group is managed by two full-time Project Coordinators and supervised by an independent research consultant who also serves as an adjunct professor for the New York Medical College Graduate School of Health in Valhalla, New York.

Research Group staff presented our Teen Choice program evaluation findings at three national conferences during 1999: the Society for Public Health Education, the American Public Health Association, and the National Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting and Prevention, Inc.

We are pleased to report the findings from our longitudinal evaluation of Inwood House’s Continuum of Care program for pregnant and parenting teens. Inwood House provides comprehensive health, educational, vocational, and family support services aimed at deterring infant mortality and creating healthy and stable families. Services are provided during pregnancy in our Maternity Residences and post-pregnancy in our Partners in Parenting and Mother/Child Foster Care programs. Young fathers are served through our Fathers Count program. A five-year evaluation, underwritten by a national demonstration grant awarded by the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services and supervised by an independent evaluator, assessed our program's impact on teen parents’ educational, employment and parenting success. This study provides important information regarding which services, dosage of service and service environment can have a significant positive impact on pregnant and parenting teens' ability to make a sound transition to adulthood.

For example, our findings showed the following positive outcomes for our pregnant and parenting teens which show a capacity for self-regulation, relationship and social connections and parenting empathy, characteristics necessary for successfully meeting the challenges of parenthood and deterring child abuse and neglect. In contrast to a comparison group, our pregnant and parenting teens showed significant improvement in:

The results are especially noteworthy because they indicate adult attitudes and behaviors well beyond the young mothers' stages of adolescent development. They are also in contrast to poor national and local norms for teen mothers and their children. Nationally, 70% of teen mothers never complete high school, and the risk of dying in the first year of life is 30% higher for the infants of teens. Importantly, the study found that one year after delivery:

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Program Goals: Teen Choice program is designed to: 1) assist young people in making a healthy transition to adulthood, 2) delay the onset of sexual activity, reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS, and 3) help parents and children discuss important issues affecting their health, school performance, and social and emotional development.

Program Philosophy: The Teen Choice program model operates on the assumption that when given factual information and non-judgmental guidance from a professionally trained adult, and the opportunity to problem solve and reflect, adolescents are able to make responsible decisions about sexual involvement and other life choices. Teen Choice works from a belief that adolescents have inherent resources which can be cultivated to build social competencies. Building these strengths and skills helps young people meet the daily challenges of their school, family, and community environments.

Program Curriculum: The program utilizes a special Teen Choice Curriculum for Small Groups, which is based on a thorough understanding of adolescent psychological, social, and sexual development and medically accurate sexual health information. Mutual aid discussions, role-playing and interactive exercises help students to practice peer refusal skills; learn peaceful conflict resolution strategies; broach their parents on difficult issues; negotiate contraceptive use when appropriate; and incorporate what they have learned in the group into real life.

Research in the youth development field shows that several factors promote positive attitudes and behavior and protect young people against multiple risk behaviors, allowing them to achieve their educational and life goals: strong family connections, high self-efficacy or personal power, social problem solving skills, and external support systems that encourage coping and positive values and provide high expectations and positive norms. TC encompasses all of these factors through its comprehensive, integrated, and philosophically grounded intervention.

The Inwood House research group is conducting an on-going, in-depth analysis of data from our longitudinal evaluation to identify which approaches particularly enhance or hinder pregnancy prevention efforts. Findings from pretest and post-test data from more than 1,100 eighth graders and longitudinal follow-up data at one year from over 700 ninth graders, and at two years from 694 tenth graders, can demonstrate the strengths of Teen Choice in helping teens learn comprehensive, accurate sexual health information, the benefits of delaying sexual activity and parenthood, as well as developing skills to resist peer pressure for sex and other risky behaviors, improve communications and relationships with parents, and cope with family and school problems and pressures related to poverty. Ongoing evaluation suggests that TC also impacts student engagement in the school community through its full range of student services and by provides support for parents, teachers, guidance counselors, and school leadership.

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The findings demonstrate significant positive changes and long-term impact among students in the Teen Choice groups as compared to the comparison group on a wide array of youth assets which are critical to prevention of early sexual activity and pregnancy. These include:

Among girls who were already sexually active in the 8th grade, the intervention positively impacted on their attitudes about becoming pregnant as a teen. Further, among the girls in the comprehensive and comprehensive-plus groups, there were trends in delayed onset of sexual activity. The study informed program developments such as program-wide utilization of the comprehensive sexuality education and “comprehensive plus” models, and the addition of program-wide youth development opportunities.

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A three-year evaluation of the Atlantic County Teen Choice program explored the school-wide, long term impact of the Teen Choice High School intervention. Data from the county wide Youth Risk Behavior Survey and school – wide surveys administered to over 1,500 students in three Teen Choice high schools show the positive impact of teen choice.

The findings clearly demonstrate the program's ability to reach the highest risk students and to connect teens to health services. Teen Choice students were significantly more likely to have already had sex, to have been sexually abused, to have used cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana and, among the boys, to have a sexually transmitted infection, been physically abused, and to have repeated a grade.

The findings also showed that youth who participated in Teen Choice were significantly more likely than those who had not to:

TFL Study Outcomes-for research page

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