Promoting Positive Youth Development

Young People Achieve (YPA)

WJCS’S Young People Achieve (YPA) program is a three-site school and community collaboration offering comprehensive case management and counseling services to youth who are pregnant and/or parents. YPA supports pregnant/parenting teens in completing their high school education, avoiding a second pregnancy, enhancing their parenting skills, and moving toward economic self-sufficiency.

This youth development program counsels teens to make healthy choices and realize their potential to become competent, responsible, and caring individuals. YPA has had remarkable success. While national statistics indicate that 25% of girls who have a baby before age 21 give birth to a second child within two years and that teen mothers are in the highest risk group for having another unplanned pregnancy, further increasing their risk of chronic poverty and placing them at greater risk for health issues, 100% of YPA youth have not had a second pregnancy before high school graduation. They do not re-enter the risk pool for teen mothers.

Nationally, young women who have children before the age of 21 are at serious risk of dropping out of school and long-term dependence on public assistance. The single strongest preventive measure against long-term poverty (which places people at greater risk for health issues) is education. Of YPA youth, 85% return to school or enroll in a TASC and/or ESL program following the birth of their children. Without YPA, many teen mothers would not complete high school.

Peer Impact

Peer educators present to ESL classes, clubs, community organizations, and health classes about healthy relationships, positive decision making, and pregnancy prevention. Peer Impact supports youth in developing leadership, advocacy, and presentation skills.

Students practice their skills by offering educational workshops to families and peers about:

• Decision-making
• Dating safety
• Peer pressure
• Self-esteem
• Pregnancy prevention
• Sexually-transmitted infections
• Teen depression and anxiety
• Prevention of alcohol and drug use/abuse
• Domestic violence awareness
• Family communication
• Acculturation/immigration challenges

Both YPA and the Peer Impact Education program engage youth in school-wide campaigns and health class presentations to encourage healthy choices and pregnancy prevention.