The program emphasizes the connection between individual and community action. Individual change is encouraged in PEP through training sessions, trust-team building exercises and discussions. PEP supports community action through participants' projects to change and improve community. The program is conducted by a trained facilitator and guided by an advisory committee. The facilitator provides ten two-hour training sessions for the participants.
Participants commit one year to the program.
Program participants are teen parents already enrolled in the Teen Mentor Mom program. Participants are mothers of the children in the two elementary schools with the above characteristics. The Hartford program is located at the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School. Participants are parents at this school. A parent from the school and an active participant at the Family Resource Center there was hired and trained to conduct PEP at this site.