Options for Youth is a not-for-profit corporation that works to create opportunities for underserved youth by developing programs that build upon the strengths and maximize the potential of each young person. Current programs focus upon helping adolescent mothers delay a second birth, remain in, and graduate from high school. Options is partnering with the Chicago Public Schools to implement this program model in five local high schools. Options staff provides intense training and employment to adolescent males on Chicago’s south side who work in their own schools and communities as peer advocates for male health. Options for Youth bring years of experience in community-based program development and provides technical assistance in program design, implementation, training, and evaluation to local agencies and community organizations working with adolescents.

Director and founder of PAH, a program designed to provide increased access to reproductive health information and services to adolescent males living in underserved neighborhoods on Chicago’s south side. Young men, ages 15-19, who are in school, are intensively trained and employed to work in their own communities as peer advocates for health, and have provided critical health and lifestyle information to 10,000 other adolescents in their schools and neighborhoods.

Director and founder of SPP, a project to delay second births among adolescent mothers. The project has received long-term support from the state of Illinois and the program model was developed working collaboratively with ten community-based organizations across the state. More than 5,000 first-time adolescent mothers have participated in SPP with very low levels of repeat pregnancy and high rates of high school graduation across time and diverse populations of adolescents.