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The Resource Center for Young Parents-To-Be is a longstanding and successful grant-funded project that was initiated as a response to an identified community need. Senior-level baccalaureate nursing students and their maternity-nursing instructors are responsible for staffing the resource center's weekly sessions, which take place at a public school site for pregnant adolescents. Childbirth educators interested in working with this population could assist in replicating this exemplary clinical project in order to provide prenatal education to this vulnerable and hard-to-reach group.The Journal of Perinatal Education, 18(2), 40-47, doi: 10.1624/105812409X426323 Keywords: pregnant adolescents, prenatal education, nursing education, community service In many parts of the United States, pregnant adolescents are not typically among the participants in Lamaze childbirth preparation classes or hospital prenatal classes. In her study of 126 adolescent mothers, DeVito (2007) found that only 10% attended parenting classes and 13.5% attended classes for childbirth preparation. Barriers to participation include lack of transportation, lack of motivation or information, inadequate support or commitment to attendance from significant others, insufficient time, and embarrassment and discomfort in adultfocused settings. This article describes a strategy for providing prenatal classes that surmounts the barriers to attendance by pregnant adolescents. ESTABLISHING THE NEEDIn spring 1997, we discovered that child protection investigations in our parish (county) had increased 14% from 1990-1996 (Louisiana Children's Trust Fund, 1997. Within the wider eight-parish area, most valid child abuse allegations in 1996 were for neglect and physical abuse. Other data indicated that the most common perpetrator was 20-29 years old at the time of her child's birth, and the next most common perpetrator was an adolescent when her child was born. Knowing that parents' lack of knowledge about children's development, needs, and care is often a factor contributing to child abuse and neglect, we decided to draw on our experience as prenatal educators and maternity nursing instructors in a baccalaureate nursing program at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in order to design and implement prenatal parenting classes targeting pregnant women aged 13-29 years old. The goal of the project was to provide education and support, a form of primary prevention that would benefit these individuals who are at higher risk than others for child abuse and neglect.

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