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In 2013, South Carolina implemented a multi-year program providing support services for pregnant and parenting teens. Local lead sites were responsible for coordinating service delivery in partnership with other multidisciplinary community-based organizations. We used social network theory and analyses (SNA) to examine changes in partnerships over time. Using two-stage purposeful sampling, we identified three lead sites and their self-reported community partners. We administered two web-based surveys grounded in social network theory that included questions about partnership relationships and organizational characteristics. We calculated selected whole-network measures (size, cohesion, equity, diversity). Following the Year 1 surveys, we reviewed our findings with the lead sites and suggested opportunities to strengthen their respective partnerships. Following the Year 3 surveys, we observed changes across the networks. Survey response rates were 91.5% (43/47) in Year 1 and 68.2% (45/66) in Year 3. By Year 3, the average network size increased from 15.6 to 20.3 organizations. By Year 3, one lead site doubled its measure of network cohesion (connectedness); another lead site doubled in size (capacity). A third lead site, highly dense in Year 1, increased in size but decreased in cohesion by Year 3. Innovative use of SNA findings can help community partnerships identify gaps in capacity or services and organizations needed to fulfill program aims. SNA findings can also improve partnership function by identifying opportunities to improve connectedness or reduce redundancies in program work. The ability of lead sites to strategically reconfigure partnerships can be important to program success and sustainability.

The teen pregnancy rate in Henry County, Tennessee has increased over the years. The purpose of this project was to develop an evidence-based family life education policy for possible adoption by the board of education to address the persistent high teen pregnancy rate for girls aged 15-17 in the county. This present study resulted in a revised policy that was based on a comprehensive policy termed Abstinence-Centered Plus Contraception. An 18-member collaborative, organizational, and community project team, made up of community leaders, nurses, counselors, teachers, and students, assisted in the development and adoption of the policy, practice guidelines, and the development of implementation and evaluation plans for the newly adopted policy. The theoretical framework was based on the social, cognitive, and behavior change theories. The program logic model served as a framework to monitor its progress. Existing peer-reviewed literature, including research studies, state and national teen pregnancy prevention projects and curriculum, and publicly available statistics, were gathered and reviewed by the project team as background to be used for developing and changing policy at the institutional level. Project monitoring involved tracking processes surrounding policy and practice guideline development and adoption, as well as implementation and evaluation plan development for the adopted policy and whether these processes progressed as the empirically-derived teen pregnancy prevention projects should when changing sex education policy at the organizational level. This project resulted in policy adoption and developing a policy implementation and evaluation plan to be disseminated within a county school system that could decrease teen pregnancy rates and demonstrate positive outcomes.