Teen Parent Connection

To serve the community through education on the realities and responsibilities of teenage pregnancy and through long-term assistance to adolescent parents for their development of self-esteem, parenting skills, and empowerment toward self-sufficiency.

Founded by Jeanne Altendorf-McLennan, a registered nurse who worked as a childbirth educator at Hinsdale Hospital, Teen Parent Connection, formerly Greater DuPage MYM, was established in November 1985 to provide adolescent parents with parenting education, support, and resources to improve the outcomes for both the young parent and the child.

More than twenty years later, the organization has expanded beyond the originally utilized MELD (Minneapolis) group model to a program that now includes four options for young parents and is affiliated with Healthy Families America to provide an intensive home visitation program. Through these initiatives, Teen Parent Connection provides a continuum of comprehensive services designed to assist young parents in navigating both parenthood and adolescence. In fact, Teen Parent Connection is the only nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization in DuPage County providing comprehensive programs and services related to teenage pregnancy and parenting. In addition to parenting services, young parent participants are offered the opportunity to train as peer educators to deliver a strong pregnancy prevention message through prevention education programming offered to middle schools and high schools in DuPage and areas of Kane, Will, and Cook counties.

Teen Parent Connection has provided parenting support services for over 4,000 adolescent parents since 1985. In the most recent program year, more than 500 adolescent parents (ages 12 to 22), and additionally their children, were served through our Group, Healthy Families DuPage home visitation and the doula programs. More than 15,000 middle school and high school students heard the prevention message.