Child care

Young people learn parenting skills from DuPage group

Sitting in the middle of her family's living-room floor, 7-month-old Micayla Golik played with a package of colorful plastic blocks, oblivious to the conversation her mother, 18-year-old Amy Golik, was having with Courtney Rowden.

Without that conversation, though, Micayla wouldn't have had those blocks to play with that morning.

Rowden, a family support worker for Healthy Families DuPage, drops by Amy Golik's Naperville home every week to meet with her and help her, as a parent, recognize and respond to Micayla's changing needs. Rowden's visits are part of the services offered by Greater DuPage MELD for Young Moms, a nonprofit organization modeled after Minnesota Early Learning Design and dedicated to providing community-based support to adolescent parents and their babies.

On this visit, Rowden brought the blocks from MYM's Toy Lending Library, which allows young parents to check out toys for two weeks to see if their children like them before they actually buy them.

Services such as these attracted Golik to MYM shortly after she got pregnant and dropped out of classes at Naperville North High School because of the chronic sickness she endured during her pregnancy.

"I was young," Amy said. "I figured I could use all the help I could get."

One way MYM helped Golik was by introducing her to Rowden, who, during her weekly home visits, discusses child development and day-to-day issues Golik may face as a single, teenage mother of her first child. Nine years ago, Rowden was a teen mother in the same situation with her son as Amy and Micayla are in today. As a past participant in MYM, Rowden understands the emotions Golik has experienced, knows what waits ahead, and has been trained to help with whatever may happen in the weeks and even years to come.

"Don't refuse help that's given to you," Rowden said.

Golik hasn't. For starters, she has attended MYM's weekly parenting support groups as way to meet and make friends with other young mothers going through similar situations. Those groups are facilitated by former teen mothers who, like Rowden, volunteer their time toward MYM's cause.

Golik said it's that sort of support that has been the best part of her experience with MYM.

"(Without it) I'd feel like I was alone," she said. "I'd feel like I was the only young teenage mom going through this."

Golik, who lives with her parents, said she used to dream of turning 18, forgetting about her curfew, going out whenever she wanted to and maybe even getting a place of her own.

"Here I am, 18 now, and I can't do that," she said.

Now she's preparing to enter Greater DuPage MYM's Pregnancy Prevention Program to tell that to other teens. This program trains MYM participants to speak to middle and high school students about their lives as teen parents. Once trained, they go to school and church groups and share stories of the realities and the responsibilities of early parenthood to increase youth awareness of the long-term consequences of adolescent pregnancy and parenting.

Now that she's the mother of a baby girl, though, Golik's not sure what she'll say to the teens she will talk to.

"I guess I would say it was hard, but I wouldn't change anything now that I have her," she said.

Once intending to graduate and pursue a career in cosmetology, Golik works at Kohl's to support her child and intends to earn her GED diploma at some point, she said. Right now, though, seeing to Micayla's needs sits atop her list of priorities.

"I didn't know how much work there was to having a baby, but it gets easier every day," she said.

Amy is eligible to apply for MYM's scholarship programs, which helps young mothers complete their high school, vocational or college educations. She can also participate in MYM's Parents Pantry, an incentive-based program in which MYM participants can purchase diapers, wipes and formula using "Baby Bucks" earned by attending MYM meetings, keeping up with their child's immunizations, continuing home visits with their family support worker and finishing school.

This service, like many of MYM's services, is dependent upon the generosity of the community. These baby basics, as well as MYM's other services, don't buy themselves. In 2003, MYM's expenses totaled slightly more than $1 million, about half of which was covered by government grants and foundation and corporate contributions. The better part of the rest comes from in-kind donations.

For example, "$25 buys 75 diapers, keeping baby bottoms dry until mom's next paycheck," MYM Executive Director M. Janet Bornancin said in the organization's December newsletter. "A $600 annual gift pays for childcare, a $1,000 gift sponsors five high school prevention presentations, and $3,000 sponsors a young mother's participation in MYM for a year."

These services are important to young mothers such as Golik.

"I wanted to be able to provide for (Micayla) on my own, but sometimes you just can't do it," she said.

12/07/04