Behavioral Health of Pregnant and Parenting Youth in Baltimore

Jordan Bass

Mentor: Dr. Jenny Afkinich, Dr. Margo Candelaria

UMB Social Work Department

Homeless youth encounter many challenges, and homeless youth who are parents may face additional challenges. Bmore SUCCEEDS is a project dedicated to helping youth that face substance abuse, homelessness, and pregnancy or parenting. I analyzed data that was collected by service providers for the Bmore SUCCEEDS project. Our goal was to see the effect that being a parent has on homeless youth’s mental health and substance abuse. This information could be used to identify risk factors and possibly help develop solutions to the problems. My hypothesis was that those who were parents would have a greater rate of both mental health issues and substance abuse compared to those who are not parents. Previous research found that homeless youth who were parents participated in high risk behaviors. The study includes 45 participants, 12 of whom were pregnant or parenting at the time of data collection. No one who was pregnant or parenting reported using drugs or alcohol. Nine of these people said their living situation was not emotionally safe, while three said it was. Five said that they were diagnosed with a psychological or behavioral problem, one said they were not, and the rest did not answer. Seven said that they have seen a mental health professional or are currently seeing one. Four said that they have never seen a mental health professional. I have conducted t-tests in order to test the significance of my findings. These t tests showed that there was no significant distance between the parenting and non-parenting groups. Future research might include making comparisons between my study and the same kind of study in other areas. It could also include re-running the tests with a larger sample size.