Group Home

The U.S. teen pregnancy rate is more than twice as high as that of any other country in the industrialized world — with more than half a million teens bearing children each year and more than 70% of these births taking place to unmarried girls. Within Allegheny County, there are only a few residential homes providing services for pregnant and parenting girls.

On March 12, 2006, Gwen's Girls opened their residential facility. The creation of this Group Home expanded our comprehensive continuum of services to meet the needs of court-adjudicated pregnant and parenting girls, ages 13 to 18, in Allegheny County. This home was established to address the complex issues of what is the most vulnerable subset of girls — abused and neglected girls who find themselves pregnant.  Research, as well as every day reality, tells us that if left unaddressed, this population will continue the cycle of poverty, abuse and neglect and the social problems that plague our society will compound.

The goal of the residential program is to provide a safe, secure environment where at-risk pregnant and parenting girls have the opportunity to develop the skills and understanding that will allow them to live as self-sufficient, healthy and empowered women and to raise healthy babies.

Although our specialty remains with pregnant and parenting teens, we expanded our program to include non-pregnant and parenting girls in January 2007.  This expansion was due to the fact that most of the programs designed to support teens in terms of placement are built around the needs of adolescent males and lack the gender-specific programming needed for girls.  We knew we could also service these girls in our existing facility.

Our philosophy is a holistic, gender-specific approach tailored to fit each individual girl's needs to develop her strengths, pro-social values, leadership skills, and discipline in order to facilitate a successful return to her family and community. This is accomplished in tandem with the family, caseworker, probation officer, school personnel, GG staff, and significant others through the development and implementation of each individual service plan.  Our program is designed to provide individual care management, supportive services, group counseling, and individual and family counseling/therapy.