Waterville is a city in Kennebec County, Maine, United States, on the west bank of the Kennebec River. The city is home to Colby College and Thomas College. As of the 2020 census the population was 15,828. Along with Augusta, Waterville is one of the principal cities of the Augusta-Waterville, ME Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Teenage pregnancy, also known as adolescent pregnancy, is pregnancy in a female adolescent or young adult under the age of 20. Worldwide, pregnancy complications are the leading cause of death for women and girls 15 to 19 years old. The definition of teenage pregnancy includes those who are legally considered adults in their country. The WHO defines adolescence as the period between the ages of 10 and 19 years. Pregnancy can occur with sexual intercourse after the start of ovulation, which can happen before the first menstrual period (menarche). In healthy, well-nourished girls, the first period usually takes place between the ages of 12 and 13.
An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or abusive. There may be substance abuse or mental illness in the biological home, or the parent may simply be unwilling to care for the child. The legal responsibility for the support of abandoned children differs from country to country, and within countries. Government-run orphanages have been phased out in most developed countries during the latter half of the 20th century but continue to operate in many other regions internationally. It is now generally accepted that orphanages are detrimental to the emotional wellbeing of children, and government support goes instead towards supporting the family unit.
The Home for Little Wanderers is a private non-profit child and family service agency. It has been part of the Massachusetts landscape for more than 200 years, making it the oldest agency of its kind in the nation and one of the largest in New England. Founded as an orphanage in 1799, The Home today plays a leadership role in delivering services to thousands of children and families each year through a system of residential, community-based and prevention programs, direct care services, and advocacy.
Pregnancy school is a type of school in the United States exclusively for pregnant girls. New York City, among other cities and states, opened a series of these schools in the 1960s and moved pregnant girls out of their regular high schools into these special schools. As of May 2007, the city is planning on shutting these schools down due to a history of low test scores and poor attendance.
The Orphan Train Movement was a supervised welfare program that transported children from crowded Eastern cities of the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the Midwest. The orphan trains operated between 1854 and 1929, relocating from about 200,000 children. The co-founders of the Orphan Train movement claimed that these children were orphaned, abandoned, abused, or homeless, but this was not always true. They were mostly the children of new immigrants and the children of the poor and destitute families living in these cities. Criticisms of the program include ineffective screening of caretakers, insufficient follow-ups on placements, and that many children were used as strictly slave farm labor.
Teen Mom is an American reality television series broadcast by MTV. It is the first spin-off of 16 and Pregnant, and it focuses on the lives of several young mothers as they navigate motherhood and strained family and romantic relationships. Its first run consists of four seasons originally aired between December 8, 2009, and October 9, 2012, while another four seasons have aired during its second run that began on March 23, 2015. Season 9 premiered on January 26, 2021.
Porter-Leath, formerly known as the Children's Bureau, is a non-profit organization based in Memphis, Tennessee that serves children and families in the area. Porter-Leath was founded in 1850 as an orphanage and has since grown to six program service areas. The agency retains the early nature of its mission by providing foster care and has also expanded to early childhood education.
The Boston Female Asylum (1803–1910) was an orphanage in Boston, Massachusetts, "for the care of indigent girls." Its mission was to "receive ... protect ... and instruct ... female orphans until the age of 10 years, when they are placed in respectable families."
DePelchin Children's Center, founded in 1892 in Houston, Texas, is a nonprofit organization focused on supporting and sustaining children and the families who care for them. DePelchin provides a range of services for children and families — it is an accredited foster care and adoption agency, and it also provides residential treatment for youth in foster care, as well as serving youth who are about to age out of foster care or have recently aged out of foster care. DePelchin’s services also include counseling, parenting classes, and other services focused on protecting children and keeping families strong. The center continues to be recognized at the state and federal level for cutting-edge programs, including a federal grant as a leading child trauma expert in Texas.
The Gladney Center for Adoption in Fort Worth, Texas, US, provides adoption and advocacy services. Following its 1880s origins, when it focused on locating homes for orphans during a period of mass migration. It evolved into lobbying, international adoptions, counseling, maternity services, education and philanthropy.
Teenage pregnancy in the United States refers to females under the age of 20 who become pregnant. 89% of these births take place out-of-wedlock. Since the 1990s, teen pregnancy rates have declined almost continuously in the United States, but the United States still has one of the highest teenage birth rates among the industrialized nations. The 5 states with the highest teen birth rate are Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Alabama. According to the Centers for Disease Control, evidence suggests that the decline in teenage pregnancy is due to abstinence teaching and the use of birth control. Although the decline is considered good news, the racial/ethnic and geographic disparities continue in The United States. In 2019, the birth rates for Hispanic teens and non-Hispanic Black teens were more than double than the rates for white teens.
Nightlight Christian Adoptions is a national, non-profit, Hague-accredited, pro-life licensed adoption agency that counsels pregnant women and arranges adoptions. They have locations in ten U.S. states and arrange adoptions both domestically and internationally. The agency was founded in 1959. Nightlight was the first agency beginning in 1995 to organize a tour of the United States by group of orphaned Russian children. In 1997, the agency created the first program in the United States to arrange for couples to adopt frozen embryos.
Catholic Guardian Services (CGS) is a human services non-profit organisation sponsored by the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York with programs to help members of the disadvantaged population in the New York metropolitan area.
Sharon H. Abrams is an American nonprofit executive. She was the executive director of the Maine Children's Home for Little Wanderers, a nonprofit agency in Waterville, Maine, from 1992 to 2015. She began working at the Home as a teacher in 1973 and was subsequently promoted to program head, assistant executive director, and executive director. Since retiring from the latter position, she continues to work at the Home as a volunteer and social worker. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2004.
Laurie Gagnon Lachance is an American economist and college administrator. Since 2012, she has been the president of Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, and is the first woman to fill that post. She was previously the first woman Maine State Economist and the first woman president of the Maine Development Foundation. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2014.
Thelma Cowey Swain was an American philanthropist. She contributed significant funds to non-profit organizations in Maine and also established scholarships at Middlebury College, Tufts University, and at each of the seven colleges of the Maine Community College System. In 2010, her estate bequeathed $1 million to The Foundation for Maine's Community Colleges. She was posthumously inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2010.
Barbara W. Woodlee is an American college administrator. She was president of Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield, Maine, from 1984 to 2012, and since 2013 has served as chief academic officer of the Maine Community College System. She was the first woman president in both the state technical college and community college systems. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2015.
Lily Nie is the founder of Chinese Children Adoption International, which has overseen the international adoptions of over 10,160 Chinese children. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2008.
