By Michael D. Clark
Enquirer staff writer

The Darlene Bishop Home for Life is believed to be the largest home for pregnant teens in Ohio.

Dennis Evans, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, which licenses group homes, says only the five-bed Continue Life Inc. of Cleveland cares for pregnant teens in the state.

In Northern Kentucky, the only home for pregnant teens is the 16-bed Hollon House in Georgetown, which also serves non-pregnant teens, authorities say.

In Lexington, pregnant and troubled teens are served by one of the 30 Florence Crittenton Homes that operate nationally. The All God's Children home in Nicholasville, near Lexington, also accepts some pregnant teens.

In many ways, the homes are throwbacks to the past.

The Catherine Booth Home in Walnut Hills once was the primary residential facility for area pregnant teens. It opened in 1909, and in the 1940s became one of the first nationwide to expand services to African-American girls.

The home moved to Avondale in the 1950s, and at its height in the early 1960s served nearly 50 pregnant teens at one time.

The expansion of in-home social services contributed to the home's decline, and it closed residential services in 1985. The home's other social-aid programs, last operated by the Salvation Army, closed in 1998.

"As our society's morals and tolerance increased - and our laws changed - the old pregnant-teen homes faded away," says Penny Wyman, executive director of the Ohio Association of Child Caring Agencies.

The Web site for the Darlene Bishop Home for Life is www.dbhl.org.