Program Goals
The Taking Charge curriculum is a solution-focused, cognitive-behavioral brief group intervention designed to help pregnant and parenting female students stay in school. School achievement and subsequent graduation are believed to be the first steps for adolescent mothers toward establishing lives of self-sufficiency. The primary goals of Taking Charge are school achievement through increased attendance, improved grades, and positive life outcomes. The program curriculum was designed within a developmental and strengths-based framework, so school professionals can intervene with young mothers and enhance their social problem-solving skills and active coping strategies that will enable them to manage the challenges they encounter across four critical life domains: education, personal relationships, parenting, and employment/career.
Target Population
The school-based curriculum was developed because of the extraordinarily high dropout rate of pregnant and parenting Mexican American female students in high school.
Program Components
The curriculum includes a group meeting once a week for 8 weeks, with each session lasting 60 to 90 minutes. The group session format has three segments. The first segment involves a group discussion led by the group leader on various topics, including participants’ personal experiences with tasks completed between sessions. During the second segment, participants work through the five-step problem-solving process in which they identify their goals and carry out specific tasks toward each goal before the next group meeting. The third segment includes any questions or concerns participants may have for the group leader, and a summarization of the session.
Incentives are built into the curriculum to motivate participants to fully engage in the group activities and individual tasks. The primary incentive is a point system. Compliments and positive feedback from group leaders and members are also used. Points can be earned each week by attending school, attending group sessions, completing tasks, and finishing school homework. Points are accrued throughout the 8 weeks of group sessions toward an award in the end. Awards vary according to available resources but may include gift certificates, small gifts such as movie passes, and participation in an off-campus field trip.
Program Theory
The Taking Charge curriculum is based on seven major theoretical components:
- Goal setting across four critical life domains
- Developmental theory framework
- Strengths-based, solution-focused brief therapy framework (Franklin, et al. 2012; Franklin, Kim, and Tripodi 2009; Kim and Franklin 2009)
- Theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984)
- Bandura’s social learning theory (Bandura 1999)
- Social problem-solving process (D’Zurilla and Nezu 1982)
- Task-centered group model (Reid 1986)
The theoretical foundation provides the basis for many of the intervention activities, such as solution building, practicing and mastering skills, modeling, and incentive strategies.