Education Leading to Employment and Career Training (ELECT)
Under a grant from the Center for Schools and Communities , Edward Smith, Dr. PH. conducted a feasibility study to determine if young women who participated in the ELECT program can be re-contacted and interviewed one to five years after leaving the program. Since 1990, the Pennsylvania Departments of Education and Public Welfare have collaborated to fund the ELECT program which aims to assist welfare-eligible teen parents to complete their high school education and obtain stable employment. In addition, the ELECT program teaches parenting skills, provides participants with pregnancy prevention information, and connects participants to community services and resources. The ELECT Feasibility study contacted and interviewed past program participants in Erie, Harrisburg, and Scranton about related life course events such as fertility, marriage, employment, welfare receipt, and child health and well-being. Dr. Smith and Dr. Daphne Minner were co-investigators on a related data-analysis project, the goal of which was to modify the current methods used to collect and analyze yearly outcome data on the ELECT participants. For more information about the ELECT projects, please contact Anastasia Snyder, Ph.D. , project director.