Developed in 1984 by Dr. Michael A. Carrera and The Children’s Aid Society (CAS), the CAS-Carrera program is an evidence-based primary adolescent pregnancy prevention program. The goal is to help young girls and boys avoid becoming parents during the second decade of their lives. The program is guided by a philosophy that sees youth as “at promise” not “at risk”; its holistic “above the waist” approach seeks to develop a participant’s capacity and desire to avoid early pregnancy.
For almost 30 years, CAS-Carrera has improved the lives of young people and their families and continues to produce extraordinary results. The CAS-Carrera program model is built on seven components; Education, Financial Literacy, Family Life and Sexuality Education, Mental Health Services, Comprehensive Medical and Dental Care, Self-Expression, and Lifetime Individual Sports.
Currently, we are serving nearly 4,000 young people in neighborhoods throughout New York City and partnership sites in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Programs operate in the traditional afterschool model and integrated school model in cities, suburbs, public schools and charter schools.
The CAS-Carrera program is designated as a “Top Tier” program by the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates for policy based on rigorous evidence of what works. The U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Adolescent Health included CAS-Carrera among the 28 models that HHS identified as evidence-based and as one of two models backed by well conducted randomized controlled trials showing a sustained impact on reducing teen pregnancy rates. The CAS-Carrera program has also been a recipient of the Social Innovation Fund award.