HISTORY
The Margaret Hudson Program provides and is a resource for: Academic and Vocational Education, Health Services, Counseling and Outreach, Parenting and Life Skills Education, On-site Childcare Services, and Teen Pregnancy Prevention.
Dr. Margaret Hudson
Margaret Hudson, MD was Director of the Maternal and Child Health Division of the Tulsa City-County Health Department from 1946 to 1963. She established the Child Health Conferences for the purpose of monitoring and improving the health of mothers and babies in Tulsa County.
Dr. Hudson was concerned about the poor health status of babies born to teenagers. She recognized that an important contributing factor was the cycle of under-education and poverty that so many teen mothers experienced. An unplanned pregnancy left the young woman cast out from her support system at a time when she needed it most. Too often, these teen parents dropped out of high school in order to provide for their babies. Without a high school diploma, many became mired in low-paying jobs and the community lost the potential contributions these young people might have made. Worse, the family's poverty-level income often meant that the mother and the baby would not receive the prenatal or postpartum care necessary to give the family a healthy start, and many would be forced to depend on tax-funded support to raise their families.
Dr. Hudson was a strong advocate of helping teen mothers complete high school and providing the medical care and social supprt needed to produce healthy babies and competent parents.
Program History
In 1968, a small group of Tulsans, inspired by Dr. Hudson's concern for the special needs of school-age parents, decided to give pregnant teens the help they needed in dealing with the economic, educational and psychological problems of unplanned parenthood.
A task force made up of representatives from VISTA, Planned Parenthood and the Tulsa Psychiatric Foundation determined that the most significant assistance that could be given these young women was help in completing high school. To do this, the Tulsa Economic Opportunity Task Force financed correspondence courses which were presented through volunteer teachers. Under the sponsorship of Planned Parenthood, Inc., the Margaret Hudson Program opened its doors in 1969.
With space for only 30 girls and regularly overwhelmed by the number of applications, in 1974 the Community Service Council of Tulsa was asked to study the problem, both from a funding standpoint as well as identifying gaps in the existing system. Their findings pointed out the lack of a service program that met all the needs of adolescent parents, and proposed a united effort of public/private agencies to provide such services.