Emily Forrester studies family support programs and policies that support underserved and underresourced families and individuals to promote optimal youth development and health. These include programs that increase family economic well-being, improve parenting skills, and provide teen access to sexual and reproductive health services.
Since joining Mathematica in 2021, Forrester has worked on a range of projects in the areas of family support and early child development. Currently, she is the deputy project director for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Evidence Review, which identifies programs with evidence of effectiveness in reducing teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, or associated sexual risk behaviors. Forrester also plays a key role in developing strategies to identify core components of Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs and how to evaluate them. She provides evaluation technical assistance to grantees in the teen pregnancy prevention and child welfare spaces, including supporting formative work to develop new programs as well as the quality and rigor of local evaluations and performance measurement.
Forrester has published in journals such as Prevention Science, Family Process, and the Journal of Family Psychology. She holds an Ph.D. in human development and family studies from The Pennsylvania State University.
This article briefly documents the innovation history of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Program, synthesizes findings from the fifteen TPP innovators published in this special edition, and highlights emergent priorities of the TPP Program.
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