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I came across a recent news article out of the Orange County Register, about a new infant care center in Orange County, California. The center is the latest project of Casa Teresa, a charity organization that provides intensive parenting classes, shelter, and support to low income mothers, drug addicted mothers, etc.
On Thursday, Casa Teresa and a coalition of partners and supporters opened an infant care center for its high-risk, low-income clientele. The goal: give mothers a safe place to leave their children so that they can find jobs.
In the article, we are introduced to Brandy Ford who had a bad childhood living with an alcoholic mother. Brandy ended up pregnant at age fifteen and gave birth to a baby girl, whom she placed for adoption. After her daughter’s relinquishment, Brandy couldn’t cope and made many bad choices and became addicted to drugs. She was arrested fourteen times alone in one year.
Now, 24, Brandy is now a single mother to a five month baby boy. She is determined to clean her life up, fight her drug addiction, and provide her son with a better life than her own.
It is why, each morning, she walks her baby to a brightly painted building filled with the offspring of women just like her – new mothers on the edge of homelessness, addiction and poverty.
Until the opening of this center, Casa Teresa’s support did not include child care. Finding adequate and affordable child care has been a huge obstacle for many women like Brandy.
On Thursday, Casa Teresa and a coalition of partners and supporters opened an infant care center for its high-risk, low-income clientele. The goal: give mothers a safe place to leave their children so that they can find jobs.
Brandy has a job working for a local restaurant and brings home about nine hundred dollars each week. She will end up paying a nominal fee at the Infant Care Center for childcare, but it will be based on income.
“They understand you’re in a tight squeeze,” Brandy said.
Without the center, Brandy doesn’t know how she would afford childcare and then be able to hold down a job as well.
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Other programs for pregnant women I have blogged about:
Refuge Home in Illinois
Real Alternatives in Pennsylvania
House of Courage
Lois Lodge
Heh, I e-mailed with these guys and have an interesting post forth-coming.
Oh boy! That should be interesting.