Foothill Family Service’s Teen Inspired Project promotes positive youth development and improved sexual and reproductive outcomes for teens living in communities that are disproportionately affected by unintended teen pregnancy and STIs. Central to Teen Inspired is a collaborative network of community partners, teens, and their caregivers working together to strengthen and expand youth services across the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys in Los Angeles County, CA.
The inequalities and disparities that historically existed for low-income communities of color in the communities we serve have been exacerbated in our post-COVID world. As with other low-income urban communities across our service area, the regions we will focus on demonstrate individuals and families continuing to experience high rates of housing and food insecurity, lack of job opportunities that pay a living wage, workplace safety, and access to healthcare. Ushering in an extraordinary health crisis only added to the stigma and fear associated with seeking healthcare, keeping marginalized families living in poverty further away from receiving treatment related to more serious health and mental health issues. According to the Census Bureau, birth rates for females aged 15-19 in three of our target cities were: La Puente 44/1,000; La Verne 37/1,000; and South El Monte 22/1,000 all of which are higher than the national average of 15.4/1,000. Additionally, STI rates in Los Angeles County continue to trend upward, with a Gonorrhea case rate for males ages 15-24 at 587.2, exceeding the national average of 328.6.
Foothill Family’s Teen Inspired Project will establish Community Advisory Councils for the El Monte and Pomona regions that include local school districts, community partners, youth, and their caregivers. Teen Inspired seeks to empower youth and reduce health disparities by including youth as leaders with equal voice in the development and implementation of services intended for them. As such, Teen Inspired will recruit and hire Youth Advisors to form Youth Advisory Councils that will shape public communication about the project, recruit additional youth to participate, and inform decision making in the Community Advisory Councils.
Through Teen Inspired, the Community Advisory Councils will review and regularly update the needs assessments for their communities to ensure efforts are sensitive to changing needs and gaps in services. Teen Inspired will work with the community, teen, and caregiver partners to rigorously evaluate and select high quality Evidence-Based Practices best suited to meet the sexual and reproductive health and mental health needs of their youth. The Community and Youth Advisory Councils will craft public communication materials that are age appropriate, medically accurate, culturally and linguistically appropriate, trauma-informed, and inclusive of all youth.
Teen Inspired will coordinate the training of community partner staff in the selected EBPs and will partner with them to develop robust implementation plans for each partner site. Teen Inspired Project staff will assist partners in meeting project goals by helping to build their data collection systems, providing EBP fidelity observations, and collecting and analyzing project data. Through the efforts of the Teen Inspired network, the communities’ youth will become motivated stakeholders with increased knowledge about sexual and reproductive health outcomes, youth will have equity in access to age-appropriate health services, and the partnerships convened through this project will be sustained into the future.
