OUR HISTORY
In 1996, Sue Breslauer brought a group of people from various health organizations together to organize a call to action on teen pregnancy. Sue was a volunteer leader with the National Council of Jewish Women and Planned Parenthood and was also involved with the Jr. League’s TOTAL program. The TOTAL Program was a St. Louis based, nationally recognized teen pregnancy prevention program. Seeing the need for a more coordinated effort to reduce teen pregnancy in the St. Louis area, the group organized the November 12, 1996 conference, "Primary Prevention of Teen Pregnancy: A Challenge to the St. Louis Community." Inspired and energized by keynote speakers Susan Philliber and Micheal Carrera, conference participants formed the Teen Pregnancy & Prevention Partnership. The Partnership’s focus was on collaboration, networking and information sharing. Along with quarterly networking meetings, the Partnership sponsored a conference, a national recognized photo exhibit and a resource directory. Sue served as the Partnership’s first director.
In 2000, Missouri State Senator Betty Sims approached members of the Teen Pregnancy Partnership about developing a program to address teen pregnancy in Missouri. Working with faculty from the University of Missouri – St. Louis, the Partnership submitted a proposal to the Missouri Department of Social Service. This resulted in the Public Policy Research Center at UMSL being awarded a two-year grant to work with the Partnership. The focus of the grant was to develop the St. Louis coalition and provide funding and technical assistance to three counties in Missouri. Over 30 Missouri counties participated in submitting 25 proposals from which the Partnership selected Pemiscot, Dallas and Barton counties for the technical assistance program. As part of this grant, the Partnership sponsored two state-wide conferences, five one day intensive trainings for the three sites, distributed $36,000 to the three sites and introduced the website - www.teenpregnacy-stl.org. The State of Missouri grant also included an extensive evaluation component and allowed the Partnership to hire a full time Executive Director and a Program Coordinator.
OUR FUNDING:
Early financial supporters included: Care Partners MC+ Health Plan, The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Collaborative of Metropolitan Association of Philanthropy, the Incarnate Word Foundation, Mercy Health Plans, BJC Health Systems, St. Louis Health Care Network and Unity Health System. Significant funding allowing the Partnership to expand its scope of work came from the Missouri Department of Social Services. The Partnership has also received funds from an additional grant from the MAP Collaborative, the Alki
Foundation within the Tides Foundation, the Deaconess Foundation, and the March
of Dimes.
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