Building Community Support Using a Modified World Café Method for Pregnant and Parenting Teenagers in Forsyth County, North Carolina.

Study Objective: To identify community priorities, foster awareness of existing supports, and recognize barriers and opportunities to enhance support services for pregnant and parenting teens (PPTs).

Design And Setting: A modified World Café event incorporated parallel, rotating focus groups with semistructured, case-based discussions of salient issues. The event was organized and took place in Forsyth County, North Carolina.

Participants: Seventy-eight local health and social service professionals and 15 PPT representatives.

Interventions And Main Outcome Measures: Qualitative coding was used to thematically analyze transcript data. Quantitative data pre-/post-event comparisons were made using Fisher exact test.

Results: Key community-based support services for PPTs were identified. Qualitative analysis yielded 10 key codes regarding barriers and opportunities to enhance community-based support services, resulting in 4 themes. Themes included maximizing access and efficient delivery of high-quality health care, engaging a 3-generation approach to meet the current and future needs of at-risk families, focusing efforts to meet the unique needs of each teen and his/her family, and emphasizing teen self-advocacy. Pre/post survey responses were overwhelmingly positive regarding use of the modified World Café format for discussion and network building.

Conclusion: The modified World Café Method offered a platform to collaboratively identify challenges and opportunities and to develop networks to improve health and well-being of PPTs. Engaging multiple stakeholders in meaningful dialogue might foster multidisciplinary, cross-sector collaboration that mitigates risk and enhances resilience among PPTs and their children.