FY17 Announcement of Anticipated Availability of Funds for Support for Expectant and Parenting Teens, Women, Fathers, and Their Families

Description

The purpose of this PAF Program FOA is to support States and Tribes to provide expectant and parenting teens, women, fathers, and their families with a seamless network of supportive services including evidence-based/evidence-informed approaches to improve their health and well-being. Through this announcement, OAH aims to improve not only the health outcomes of the expectant and parenting population, but also educational, social, and economic outcomes that shape health. By doing so, this FOA seeks to create an enabling environment for expectant and parenting teens, women, and fathers to continue their education regardless of their life situation and the real and perceived challenges of early childbearing and parenthood; empower them with relevant knowledge and skills to be productive adults; provide and link them (and their families) to services to ensure they are healthy and make informed decisions about their health, including sexual and reproductive health; and support them to make successful and healthy transitions into adulthood and the labor market. The ultimate goals are to improve access to high-quality resources for the expectant and parenting population and make expectant and parenting programs and services sustainable parts of routine systems through institutionalization and expansion. For the purposes of this funding announcement, the term “expectant and parenting population” refers to expectant and parenting teens, women, fathers, and their families. The terms “expectant” and “parenting” include anyone who is expecting and parenting a child regardless of biological sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation. The term “teens” refers to persons of high-school age and “college students” refers to persons enrolled in Institutions of Higher Education. The term “young adults” refers to persons aged 18 – 24. The term “young fathers” refers to expectant and parenting male teens and young adult men. The term “youth” refers to persons between the ages of 10 and 24 years (teens and young adults). Families include, but are not limited to children, spouses, partners, and parents. OAH expects funded programs to focus on expectant and parenting teens, women, fathers, and their families. OAH expects funded programs to address the multigenerational needs of the expectant and parenting population (for example, address the needs of the parenting father, child, and the mother of the parenting father) where and when possible. OAH encourages applications that also include targeted programming for marginalized subpopulations. The expectant and parenting population is marginalized with poorer health outcomes, lower education achievements, and less economic participation than their non-expectant and parenting peers. Within this expectant and parenting population, some groups have added layers of vulnerabilities such as lack of access to traditional support systems in health and education and stigmatization and isolation. For the purpose of this FOA, these marginalized subpopulations consist of expectant and parenting teens, young adults, and college students who are runaway and homeless, in foster-care, in the juvenile justice system, immigrants, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning (LGBTQ), or have disabilities. Very few existing expectant and parenting programs address the unique needs of these marginalized groups. Expectant and parenting teens and young adults are confronted with a host of simultaneous risk factors such as educational underachievement and school dropout, depression, inadequate prenatal and postpartum care, food insecurity, and subsequent low birthweight babies and poor child health outcomes. In order to support the expectant and parenting population, OAH expects funded programs to expand partnership efforts to address these risk factors as well as aspects of life that promote their health and well-being, including but not limited to: economic and workforce development, education, transportation, food, social services, child welfare, and housing. To provide a continuum of quality supportive services, OAH expects applicants to adopt a holistic and integrated approach to serving the expectant and parenting population by directly delivering and/or providing linkages and referrals in five (5) core services domains: 1. Personal Health; 2. Child Health; 3. Self Sufficiency, Education and Employment; 4. Concrete Supports; and 5. Parenting Support (Appendix A).

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