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The Taking Charge group curriculum was constructed with the best evidenced-based research available on adolescent motherhood. Outcome research on the Taking Charge group curriculum is ongoing. At the time of writing this book, three clinical studies have been completed on the Taking Charge group curriculum with a total of 139 young mothers. Pregnant and parenting students in three regular high schools, three alternative schools, and one dropout recovery program participated in the studies. Study 1 (n = 73) and Study 2 (n = 46) included multiple treatment groups, whereas Study 3 (n = 19) was done with one treatment group. This chapter discusses these three studies and their results. It also reviews the results from qualitative data that we have collected from participants in the studies as well as participants in two Taking Charge groups that were not included in these studies. These case study and focus group data provide a wealth of information on the mothers' life experiences and how different aspects of the Taking Charge curriculum are significant to the mothers' progress. Several case studies are presented that illustrate this data.

This chapter discusses the four critical life domains of education, personal relationships, parenting, and employment/career faced by adolescent mothers. These life domains are essential elements of the Taking Charge group curriculum and are based on empirical research on risk factors that impact the self-sufficiency of adolescent mothers and their overall quality of life. A life domain is a life territory in which we must have the knowledge, skills, and confidence to assume responsibility and “take charge” of that area, regardless of our life circumstances. These four critical life domains are risk factors that adolescent mothers struggle with on a daily basis and need accelerated, advanced skills to address.

This chapter explains the theoretical and empirical basis of the Taking Charge group curriculum, including its developmental and strengths-based, solution-focused frameworks, and the life skills interventions of active, social problem solving, and coping. These life skills are taught in order to accelerate learning across the four life domains, and are based on social learning and cognitive-behavioral interventions. The importance and potential effectiveness of these types of skills with adolescent mothers are discussed. The chapter further explains the importance of the task-centered group approach that is used to teach the cognitive-behavioral skills to the adolescent mothers. Finally, it discusses why we believe that brief group programs like the Taking Charge group curriculum are important to schools and why they can be effective in a school setting.

This chapter explores the issues of adaptation in an easy question-and-answer format and shares the practice wisdom researchers gained as they offered the Taking Charge group curriculum in the real world of public schools. School-based clinical studies on the Taking Charge group tell us that it is an effective intervention with adolescent mothers. The chapter answered the top 10 questions asked by school professionals who were using or considering the Taking Charge group at their schools. These questions concerned marketing, cooperating with teachers, flexibility of sessions, school policies, resources, and training issues. The Taking charge group curriculum appears to be highly adaptable to most public school settings.

This chapter contains step-by-step guidance instructing leaders on how to facilitate each session of the Taking Charge group. Forms and material needed to facilitate each session are found at the end of the chapter. The chapter serves as a training manual by providing detailed instructions and dialogue for leaders to follow when conducting the groups, in order to assure the best intervention fidelity. It is intended to serve as a leader's guide for each group session. For this chapter to be most effective as a training tool, it should be presented in a training group, where it can best provide practice and clarification opportunities for new leaders.

This chapter provides practical information on how to be an effective group leader, and serves as additional training for those who wish to lead the Taking Charge groups. This training complements the practice manual that was presented in Chapter 3. It may be of particular help to those who are new to leading groups, but more advanced group leaders will also find this chapter invaluable because it explains specific roles and functions of the Taking Charge group leader. Issues covered include the advantages of co-leadership, managing group process, how to set up and manage the point system and incentives, how to do lunch, how to keep and manage records, effective training and teaching tips, and how to maintain intervention fidelity.

Pregnant and parenting adolescents continue to be an at-risk population in schools. With a 60% dropout rate, they are far less likely than their peers to graduate from high school, and they and their children are more likely to live in poverty than parents who delay pregnancy beyond adolescence. Skills-based interventions that include problem-solving and coping skills have been found to be effective in school programs with other adolescent problems, such as drugs and alcohol, school dropout, and antisocial behavior. Such interventions are gaining support as being effective with teen parents. This chapter examines the foundations of a cognitive-behavioral skills-based approach, as well as the compatibility of using a task-centered group for skills-building interventions. It looks at the Taking Charge curriculum, a group intervention for helping adolescent mothers achieve coping and problem-solving skills toward graduating from high school, and becoming more competent parents and self-sufficient adults.

This chapter describes the solution-focused Taking Charge (TC) intervention, a school-based program designed to help adolescent mothers. Taking Charge is a multimodal, brief cognitive behavioral curriculum that was developed within solution-focused and developmental frameworks, utilizing the strengths, resources, life goals, and developmental tasks of adolescent mothers. The goals of the curriculum are to construct a solution-focused approach that can help adolescent mothers develop the solutions they need in order to achieve good outcomes in four targeted life domains: the mother's education, social support/personal relationships, parenting, and employment/career preparation. The chapter describes the importance of these four life domains to the future outcomes of adolescent mothers and how the major components of the solution-focused TC intervention help adolescent women who are pregnant and parenting develop their own goals and solutions in these areas. It also highlights how the TC program was created, using research evidence on what works to help adolescent mothers be self-sufficient, and describes the research studies where the program was tested in schools with adolescents.

This chapter provides training for the leaders of the Taking Charge group curriculum and is meant to enhance the practice manual in Chapter 3 and the training on effective group leadership in Chapter 4. The chapter covers essential knowledge and useful practice skills for making the Taking Charge groups culturally relevant for diverse participants. In particular, it covers the cultural significance of language and dialect, rituals and activities, icons and metaphors, values, roles, and foods that represent home. Practice examples illustrate the importance of each of these elements, and how they make the groups culturally competent and effective with adolescent mothers from diverse cultural backgrounds.