RHC: Pittsburgh Mercy Health System

Contact: Michelle Rupert
Telephone: (412)232-7312<

Over the last seven years, Mercy Children’s Medical Center’s Community Programming initiatives have provided a comprehensive array of services to preadolescents and adolescents within our inner-city target communities, the South Side and Hill District of Pittsburgh. These two communities represent two of Mercy’s largest and most disadvantaged constituencies. Characterized by poverty, drugs, violent crime and dysfunctional family life, these communities are among the Pittsburgh neighborhoods with the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy and parenthood, school drop-out, delinquency, violence and other negative behaviors.

In response to the needs of these communities our traditional medical orientation has evolved into a A transmedical approach exemplified by our existing care and prevention services. Mercy utilizes a theoretical framework that addresses the risk and protective factors present in each youth’s life and the role they play in determining the outcome of a child’s development. Specifically our overall goal is to:

Through the utilization of an indigenous staffing model, develop and implement a comprehensive network of care and prevention services for preadolescents and adolescents within our inner-city target communities.

Utilizing indigenous staff, individuals who reside within the communities we serve, we provide youth and their families with community, school, and home-based services. These services are designed to offer support, education and resource identification for those enrolled and their families.

Our prevention services, primarily school and community-based, provide preadolescents and adolescents with positive alternatives to street life. Utilizing two internally developed curricula, Boys to Men and Phenomenal Females, Mercy staff provide enrollees with programming that focuses on life skills education, deterring early sexual activity and parenthood, responsible decision making and planning for the future. Groups are held weekly, during school or in the evenings and also throughout the summer. Program components include mentoring, academic support, case management, abstinence education, goal setting and planning, recreational and educational trips, speakers and events.

The care component of Community Programming focuses on providing care to pregnant and parenting teens, their children and families. The majority of these programming efforts occur in the homes of teens where indigenous staff encourage compliance with recommended prenatal care, provide education regarding pregnancy and parenting and support to the teen and family. The youth enrolled in this component receive case management services, material aid, prenatal education, transportation support and coordination of services with the clinic and with social service agencies (WIC, DPW, school, etc.). There is great emphasis on keeping the pregnant/parenting moms in school and delaying a second pregnancy. We have seen positive outcomes in both of these groups.

As compared to a control group of teen parents not receiving our services, we have a higher rate of compliance with recommended prenatal care, 91% as compared to the control groups approximate 65%. The babies born to the youth receiving our services are more likely to be born full term, at higher birth weights, with fewer complications and fewer NICU admissions.

Those youth enrolled in the prevention component have also shown positive changes. Those youth enrolled in our prevention curricula have better attitudes towards abstinence and towards communicating with their parents as compared to a control group upon survey.

The programming we provide is supported by the Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh and through a variety of competitively sought grants. Our primary funders are the federal Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, Pennsylvania Project for Community building, the Howard Heinz Endowments, The Grable Foundation, Youth Works and a number of private donors.

The goal of this project is to involve the men and women in Wellspring, a psychiatric rehabilitation program that provides a drop-in atmosphere for mentally ill and/or homeless adults, in a weekly music program. The music program offers the men and women members of the center, an avenue for expression that they may be unable to expose due to their circumstances.