G-CAPP Announces Grand Opening of 11th Second Chance Home

The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (G-CAPP) Joins DeKalb County’s Pearls for Girls and Community Leaders to Announce the Opening of a New Second Chance Home for Teen Mothers.

ATLANTA – October 3, 2007 - The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (G-CAPP) announces the grand opening of the state’s 11th Second Chance Home, Pearls for Girls, in DeKalb County, Georgia. The event will take place on Thursday, October 11 at 10AM at 4001 Weelaunee Rd, Ellenwood, Georgia 30294. Pearls for Girls serves parenting teens in the Ellenwood community and surrounding areas by providing them with a safe and stable living environment and opportunities to become strong parents, high achieving students and contributing members of their community.

Georgia was one of six states to pioneer Second Chance Homes as part of welfare reform, as a strategy to prevent and reduce out-of-wedlock and teen pregnancies, specifically repeat teen pregnancies. In 2001, in partnership with Georgia's Department of Human Resources (DHR), G-CAPP developed and administered the Second Chance Homes network in Georgia. The program has proven to be successful in preventing repeat pregnancies, keeping the young mothers in school, increasing employment and decreasing dependency on TANF, WIC, and food stamps for the mothers, increasing child support from the fathers, and ensuring that their children have proper immunizations and health care.

"The state of Georgia has a particularly high rate of repeat teen pregnancies, with nearly 30% of all pregnancies among teens ages 15 to 19 occurring to girls who have already been pregnant at least once before,"  said Michele Ozumba, President and CEO of G-CAPP. "G-CAPP’s Second Chance Homes program, which has become a model for other states, is an effective strategy for helping teen mothers prevent a second pregnancy until they are self-sufficient adults, while providing them with a safe living environment, parenting skills and support for long-term economic independence."

G-CAPP is celebrating a decade of progress in adolescent pregnancy prevention in Georgia. Since 1995, the teen pregnancy rate has declined by 30%. Although this is good news, there is no time for complacency. Georgia still ranks 43rd – eighth from the bottom – among the states in its adolescent birth rate and 48th – third from the bottom – in its rate of repeat births to teens. In DeKalb County, both the teen pregnancy rate and the repeat teen pregnancy rate exceed the state average. In fact, over 1,600 pregnancies a year, or more than four new pregnancies a day, occur to teenage girls in DeKalb. There is still much work to be done to achieve G-CAPP’s vision that all children in Georgia have a safe and healthy adolescence characterized by hope, respect, and the opportunity for a productive future, free of early pregnancy and parenthood.

G-CAPP is a non-profit organization founded in 1995. G-CAPP’s mission is to eliminate adolescent pregnancy in Georgia by developing, establishing and supporting ideas and program innovations that build local and statewide capacity to promote the healthy development of our most vulnerable adolescents.