The Foundation supports programs that address the developmental needs of youth and their families. We are particularly interested in programs that:

• Help youth develop the life skills, attitudes, and internal resources to make informed and responsible life choices.
• Provide opportunities for creative expression and physical well-being, and enhancement of individual strengths. Programs that foster leadership development are of particular interest.
  

Featured Grants:

Common Sense Media Schools Program | www.commonsensemedia.org

Founded in 2003, Common Sense Media has emerged as the nation's leading, nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the media lives of children and families.  Their mission is to educate teachers, parents, and young people about the new 24/7 media environment in which our kids are growing up.  Common Sense helps children and families use both traditional media (movies, TV, books, etc) and new media and technology (cell phones, music devices, social networking sites, on-line gaming, etc.) in a responsible, smart and safe way.  The Common Sense website now draws an average of 700,000 unique visits per month, and they expect to exceed 8 million visitors this year.

Common Sense Schools is a pioneering new program that offers elementary and middle schools the training, information, resources, and support they need to offer comprehensive media education programs to their parent bodies.  Launched in November 2008 around the nation, the program already has over 1,000 schools registered to implement the program, with 15% of these schools located in California. The primary objectives of the program are to help educators and parents:

• Stay informed about the latest media, media technology, trends, and its impact on kids.
• Have easy access to developmentally appropriate information and tools about how to guide their kid’s use of digital media in a responsible and smart way. 
• Connect with each other through a vibrant on-line community where parents and educators can pose questions and share best practices about digital media, digital media technology, and its use and impact on young people.
• Establish home-school links around these important issues and bring teachers, parents, and students together in a dialogue about media issues.

The overall goal of this program is to build a community of educators and parents who have the knowledge, skills, and confidence to raise a generation of children who are safe, smart, and ethical creators and consumers of media.

PPMM - Teen Success Program

In pursuit of its mission to ensure that every individual has the knowledge, opportunity, and freedom to make every child a wanted child, and every family a healthy family, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (PPMM) conducts an array of education programs in addition to providing reproductive health medical services. 

PPMM’s Teen Success is a unique youth development program that focuses on helping pregnant and parenting teens and their babies become self-sufficient, productive citizens.  The mission of Teen Success is to help teen mothers maintain their current family size until they complete their high school education and learn how to develop future goals and plans for themselves and their children.  Through a weekly support group format, participants learn information, skills, and behaviors to prevent an additional pregnancy, develop skills to cope with the challenges of parenthood and adolescence, and receive encouragement to successfully finish their high school education.

There are currently 21 Teen Success groups conducted throughout PPMM’s regions: Bakersfield, Fresno, Stockton, Madera, Merced, Salinas, Greenfield, Watsonville, Eastside San Jose, Central San Jose, Gilroy, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Sacramento, Woodland, Yuba City, Reno. In addition to PPMM, Teen Success is being replicated through Planned Parenthood affiliates in Philadelphia, PA; Los Angeles, CA; Santa Barbara, CA; Pasadena, CA; San Diego, CA; Clinton, IA; and Ithaca, NY.

Teen Success was found by independent evaluation to be a promising program model that achieves program goals.  Members have a repeat pregnancy rate of less than 4% as compared to national statistics of 20% or more.  The program has an 19-year history of supporting pregnant and parenting teens and has been successful in helping participants delay a second pregnancy until they complete their high school, GED or vocational education.  Since Teen Success began in 1990, more than 1,800 pregnant and parenting adolescents have participated in the program. 

An important enhancement to Teen Success is the Morgan Scholarship Fund, which was launched in 2000 by Becky Morgan, co-founder of Teen Success.  Morgan Scholarships provide financial support to graduates of Teen Success who have chosen to further their education and/or acquire specialized trade skills to improve the quality of life for themselves and their children.  Since 2000, over 200 Teen Success graduates have been selected as Morgan Scholarship recipients.