States Can Use TANF Funds to Prevent Unwanted Pregnancy, Support Teen Parents

Anti-Poverty Strategy Linked to Family Planning

Reducing out-of-wedlock births to women of all ages and all incomes, not just recipients of cash assistance is one of the goals of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This is a critical element of any state’s anti-poverty strategy because family size and child spacing affect a family’s ability to achieve self-sufficiency. Of particular concern are births to teenage mothers, which increase the risk of poverty for both the mother and the child.

States can supplement welfare-to-work efforts with programs that prevent pregnancy and support teen parents. Some states are using TANF and maintenance of effort (MOE) funds to prevent early or unwanted births for teens and low-income adults and meet the unique needs of teen-parent families, notes the Center for Law and Social Policy.

Pregnancy Prevention

• Maine trains TANF recipients to be peer educators who can deliver direct, in-person family planning education and counseling to other TANF recipients.
• In South Carolina, $10.5 million in county block grants fund local initiatives that "emphasize premarital sexual abstinence and male responsibility."
• With one of the highest adolescent pregnancy rates in the U.S., Georgia focuses its teen pregnancy prevention program on youth development. Youth development programs — with components such as tutoring and mentoring, recreation, job training, community service, male involvement and parenting education — help teens become less likely to become parents, drop out of school and otherwise reduce their future options.
• California has a media campaign to heighten public awareness of problems and consequences of teen and unwed pregnancy and to promote abstinence.
• Texas and Maryland base their home visiting programs on the Healthy Families America model. Nurses, social workers or paraprofessionals try to help new parents meet challenges and delay a second birth. Home visitors link parents to social services and provide family support and parenting education.

Teen Parent Education Programs

• Pennsylvania and Massachusetts use TANF funds to help pregnant and parenting TANF teens continue their education. Pennsylvania’s ELECT program includes case management, summer and Saturday programs, and parenting and child development classes.
• Massachusetts Young Parents Program provides GED programs, vocational training, job placement, life and parenting skills, and counseling.

Many of these pregnancy prevention and teen parent programs, however, have traditionally been connected with health agencies, not welfare agencies. But as states proceed with welfare reform, leaders need to encourage linkages between welfare reform/job programs and health agencies, reports The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. Some states have found ways to forge these ties:

• In Washington state, welfare offices have family planning nurses on staff, and eight of 50 welfare offices are co-located with a family planning clinic.
• Florida has planned a strategy to refer welfare clients to family planning services and integrate family planning services with work activities.
• In Georgia, family members who need family planning information are identified during an intake process and then referred appropriately. The state plan may also require family planning counseling as well as participation in parenting classes for all teen clients whether or not they are parents.

For more information on reproductive health issues related to TANF, visit CLASP’s Website. More information on the state examples above are contained in CLASP’s paper Tapping TANF: When and How Welfare Funds Can Support Reproductive Health or Teen Parent Initiatives. Also visit The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government’s site for Is There a Link Between Welfare Reform and Teen Pregancy?