Strategies

Provide women with information about the risks and benefits of behaviors that affect their health before, during, and after pregnancy

Establish programs that accept expired, unwanted, or unused medicines from designated users and dispose of them responsibly

Transition families and individuals experiencing homelessness into permanent housing quickly, often with supports such as short-term financial assistance, case management, landlord negotiations, etc.

Promote abstinence from sexual activity, generally only with mention of condoms and birth control to highlight failure rates

Use counseling, informational materials, etc. to inform smokers and non-smokers of the harms of secondhand smoke and encourage them to implement home smoking bans

Provide short-term employment opportunities for youth, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds

Create designated tax districts that generate revenue to invest in affordable housing initiatives, blight remediation, and economic development efforts

Support school-, community-, and clinic-based teen pregnancy prevention programs such as comprehensive sex education, HIV/STI prevention and youth development efforts, service learning, etc.

Support a trauma-informed juvenile justice system to recognize and respond to trauma’s impact on youth through staff training and broad adoption of trauma-informed practices and policies

Place youth with mental, emotional, and behavioral health challenges in foster families that provide a structured, nurturing, therapeutic environment; also called Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC)