TMCI Trains the Trainer to Help Teen Moms Thrive
CHICAGO (March 17, 2011) – Each year, more than 465,000 women in the United States will become moms before their 20th birthday. The majority will choose to parent their babies, yet they will not graduate from high school and 80 percent will seek welfare
to support themselves and their child.
Teen Mother Choices International (TMCI) is a solutions-based organization that provides support for what Christa March, its founder and executive director, calls our society’s “new forgotten generation.”
TMCI provides churches and existing non-profit organizations with a proven, step-by-step training process and resources. The program includes coaching and support to implement results-based education, career and life skills programs that are designed to break the cycle of poverty one teen mom at a time. The organization serves parenting teenage mothers in their own communities throughout the country.
The nonprofit TMCI is an outgrowth of Teen Mother Choices (TMC), an Arlington Heights, Ill.-based ministry that March founded in 1989 as a mentoring service for local teen moms. As the years passed – alarmed by the growing number of enrollees in the program, a general lack of societal understanding of the issues and a pressing national need (more than 31 percent of teen mothers will have a repeat pregnancy within two years) – March launched TMCI in 2007 using the TMC-proven model to formulate extensive training materials and resources. She is a tireless advocate for TMCI’s meaningful growth.
March has hosted three consulting conferences in various states. TMCI programs are operating in Illinois and Texas. More than six organizations in five states are in different phases of the training process. The organization receives inquiries about its programs daily from around the world. Its goal is to have programs reaching 150 communities by year end.
Most telling are the results. More than 450 teen moms in Illinois alone have graduated from the program since its inception. All who need to complete their high school education earn their diplomas.
While head-of-household teenage mothers cost the United States between $9 billion and $11 billion annually, not one teen mom enrolled in the TMCI program relies on welfare. Most complete the program in about three years – at a cost per mom of approximately $7,000.
“TMCI provides donors, volunteers and churches with the opportunity to use their gifts and talents to help needy families headed by teen moms.” March says. “As we expand the program nationally and internationally – one church, one person and one organization at a time – we can seriously impact this new, forgotten generation in a positive and very meaningful way.”
TMCI’s Web site features a video interview with March, and includes background on the organization’s mission, training philosophy and community-based work, as well as client testimonials and results. Please visit online at www.tmcint.org. Also, find TMCI on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/hR2bhx.
Teen Mother Choices International (TMCI) is a non-profit Christian ministry. TMCI provides churches, charitable organizations and individuals with education and training that puts meaningful action behind serving parenting teen moms in communities nationwide. We help break the cycle of poverty one teen mom at a time. To learn more, please visit www.tmcint.org or call 847-826-8336.