Mary's Path

Mary’s Path’s mission statement is: “Believing in the value of every life, Mary’s Path empowers vulnerable teen mothers in foster care and their babies to create lives of dignity, hope and self-sufficiency.”

Our North Star – the guiding principle for all that we do – is that “The moms and babies we serve always come first. We are guided by what serves them best.”

History: Mary’s Path was founded in 1985 to provide a safe home for pregnant and parenting teens who lacked family support. Funds were raised to acquire a house, and Mary’s Path opened in 1994 to six pregnant teens who were supported with case management. In 1998, two new homes were built at its current location, licensed for 16 teens and 12 babies at any given time. Today, Mary’s Path is nationally accredited by the Council on Accreditation and licensed as a Short Term Residential Therapeutic Program (STRTP) facility by the State of California. Mary’s Path provides safe housing, trauma-informed and healing-centered mental health therapy, and other supportive services for to up to 40 teen moms each year from the foster system across Southern California. More than 90% are survivors of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC).

Programs and Services: All programs and services are trauma- and evidence-informed, delivered in a supportive and nurturing environment. Mary’s Path also ensures that all programs and services are healing centered and culturally respectful of the diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds of each of its teen moms. In addition to safe housing, services include trauma-informed therapy; parenting skills coaching and child development; life skills mentoring; academic support and job readiness; access to medical/dental care; and aftercare services.

Mary’s Path also supports the babies of teens. All teen moms are assisted with ensuring regular medical check-ups for their babies. Residents are also provided on-site high quality, developmentally appropriate child care while they are in school or working. Staff may also assist with more difficult activities, such as initiating adoption processes or taking steps toward reunification for those who may have been separated from their babies.

Public contracts support roughly 80% of Mary’s Path’s operations, with the balance supported by charitable grants and individual donations.

Accomplishments:

*Safely housed 30 teen moms and 25 babies.
*Provided 6,200+ hours of trauma-informed therapeutic services, including Individual Psychotherapy, Crisis Intervention, Intensive Care Coordination, and Intensive Home Based Services.
*Ensured that 100% of teen moms consistently attended group and individual therapy sessions; attended school (three graduated high school and two enrolled in college this year); accessed medical/dental resources for themselves and for their babies; and attended parenting/life skills workshops.
*100% of teen moms who were pregnant delivered a healthy, full-term baby (eight in 2024-2025).
*Completed more than 1,000 hours of advanced professional development, licensure and recertification training, and clinical supervision over and above STRTP licensing requirements.

Current Goals:

*100% of all teen moms will be assessed within 72 hours of admission using Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) and Youth Outcomes Questionnaire (YOQ) tools, resulting in an individual service plan.
*As scheduled in individual service plans, all teen moms will consistently attend individual and group therapy sessions, medical and health appointments, and parenting classes. "Consistently" is defined as attending at least 75% of scheduled sessions, appointments, meetings, classes, or workshops.
*100% of teen moms will have help to ensure that their babies have regular well-baby medical check-ups, including all required vaccinations. Of those who are pregnant, 100% will give birth to a healthy baby.
*At least 80% of the teen moms exiting Mary’s Path will have planned departures and will be offered after-care services for at least six months.
*100% of all staff will complete required STRTP professional development requirements and any identified additional specialty training necessary to ensure each teen mom’s needs are met.

Aftercare Services: Case manager 100% dedicated to Aftercare and direct expenses needed for successful implementation of this program. All Counties have discontinued funding aftercare due to budget costs, necessitating private funding support of this program. $270,000

Specialty Staff Training: Due to increasing CSEC victimization, advanced training for high acuity mental health needs (depression, Substance Use Disorder, and PTSD) is required. Additionally, trauma-informed care training is being instituted across the organization, including residential and administrative staff, not just mental health staff. $120,000

Child Development: Additional staff to help ensure greater consistency and continuity of care for babies in child care. Will also provide for greater frequency of individual coaching and mentoring and group glasses and workshops on parenting skills, child development, and strategies for facilitating achievement of developmental milestones. $223,000

Mary's Path is located in central Orange County. Annually, Mary's Path provides up to 40 teen moms from the foster system and their babies with a safe place to call home. While housing and services are provided in Orange County, teen moms are referred and placed by Social Services departments primarily from Los Angeles, Orange, Imperial, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties.

Our hearts are full of gratitude as we celebrate the 30 teen moms and 25 babies who called Mary’s Path home this past year, including eight healthy babies born to teen moms residing with us. Our houses were full of special baby firsts—first smiles, first teeth, first steps and words. It’s been a joy to watch the little ones grow and thrive. We also celebrated many wonderful milestones for our teen moms—three high school graduations, two college enrollments, and two first jobs.

Mary's Path is a special place, filling a unique niche in the care of teen moms from the foster care system. We remain one of only four facilities in the State that has the expertise to work with these teens and address their complex needs. Compared to teen mothers living in other circumstances, those in foster care are more likely to experience substance misuse, depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and suicidal ideation. They also face the same challenges that all foster youth face – incomplete schooling, unemployment, and homelessness.

And they are all learning to become mothers.

Last year, Mary’s Path added several new programs to its continuum of support for our teen moms. New trauma-informed services in Maternal Mental Health, Child Development, Family Finder, and Substance Use Disorder Treatment ensure more comprehensive and compassionate care for our teen moms and babies. We also reinstated our equine therapy program with new partner Otra Mas, and we continue to offer our teen moms direct access to other evidence-based alternative therapies like art, poetry, and journaling.

It is thanks to supporters like all of you that we can continue to change two lives at a time. Our work is far from over as we work to enable each teen mom to create a life of dignity, hope, and self-sufficiency for herself and her baby. Together we can accomplish our vision that these vulnerable teen moms become loving, caring mothers and raise happy, healthy children.

I am honored to begin my first term as the Chair of the Board of Directors for Mary’s Path. Since my appointment to the Board almost five years ago, I have witnessed Mary’s Path grow first-hand and am humbled to be able to help steward that growth.

As Board members, we are responsible for being ambassadors to our community, helping our stakeholders understand the complex needs of the teen moms that we serve and ensuring that programs and services not only meet these needs but are also trauma-informed, healing centered, and culturally humble. We continue advocating for public policies that benefit foster children and those who have been commercial sexually exploited, including educating the community about the continuing exponential rise in commercial child sex trafficking throughout the Southern California region. Most importantly, we work hard to ensure that Mary’s Path has the funding resources and support that it needs to continue to change two lives at a time. We are proud of our committed and skilled staff who work daily with the teen moms and babies at Mary’s Path to support their healing and help them begin to build healthy and purposeful lives for themselves and their new families.

Mary’s Path continues to be creative and resilient, constantly seeking to improve, update, and enhance its service models to meet the very complex needs of our teen moms and their babies. A heartfelt thank you to all of our supporters.