Road2Success Offers Educational Opportunity for ACS-Affected Parents

Saturday, 03 January 2009 22:27

For parents with children in the child welfare system, the path to reunification and a safe and happy family life is never easy. For years, the Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) has been offering these parents information, inspiration, assistance and support in avoiding the unnecessary removal of children by Child Protective Services and winning a quick return home for those who are placed in foster care. Now, CWOP is going a step further and offering a “Road2Success”.

Road2Success is a two-year educational support program for “ACS-affected” parents who would like to pursue higher education in New York City. It was conceptualized and funded by the Child Welfare Fund and is being administered by CWOP.

“An important component of CWOP’s strategy for system change has been to fight for increased staff roles for ACS-affected parents in foster care, preventive, and legal services agencies, and to prepare parents to fill these roles,” says Gemma Pujadas Ribeiro, Coordinator of the Road2Success Program. Over the years, CWOP has trained close to 100 parents for these roles through its Parent Leadership Curriculum.

“We believe that improved access to higher education for parents affected by ACS would lead to advanced educational credentials that, in turn, would help parents to compete for more powerful leadership positions,” Ribeiro continues. “Additionally, we believe that earning advanced educational credentials would improve their life opportunities.”

The Road2Success educational support program will be “customized” to meet the needs of individual participants, explains Ribeiro. Among the services being offered are:

• Help in identifying college programs that best suit the parent’s interests

• Finding sources of tuition support, including direct tuition support as needed, financial aid, grants, and scholarships

• Help with books and supplies, child-care, and transportation

• Tutoring and mentoring

• On-going peer support

• Developing mutually supportive relationships with school personnel and administrators.

“It means everything to me,” says Wanda Chambers, one of five parents selected for the first round of Road2Success support. “I am in school now and getting this scholarship and the support CWOP provides removes a lot of barriers.” Chambers is already half way through her studies towards a bachelors degree at the College of New Rochelle.

A mother of four, Chambers successfully won the return of her children from foster care and then went on to become a Parent Advocate at the Administration for Children’s Service where she worked for three years. Chambers now serves in the same position with Brooklyn Family Defense Project.

“This is a really good thing,” says Chambers. “A lot of people want to go to school but they don’t know how to go about it.” After completing her degree, she hopes to go on for a MSW at Hunter School of Social Work.

Other members of the Road2Success inaugural class are Ana Velez of Brooklyn; Lynne Miller of Staten Island, Latisha Hill of the Bronx and Andrele Colvert of Brooklyn.

For information contact Gemma

Pujadas Ribeiro at (212) 348-3000 or gemma@cwop.org.

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