2. Addison County
Parent Child Center
126 Monroe St., PO Box 646
Middlebury 05753
388-3171
addisonpcc.org
Early Education Services of
Windham County
130 Birge Street
Brattleboro 05301
254-3742 or 800-427-3730
Family Center of
Northwestern Vermont
130 Fisher Pond Road
St. Albans 05478
393-6580
VNA/Maternal and
Child Health
The Janet S. Munt Family Room
20 Allen Street
Burlington 05401
862-2121
NEKCA/Parent Child Center South
115 Lincoln Street
St Johnsbury 05819
748-6040
NEKCA/Parent Child Center North
32 Central Street
Newport 05855
334-4072 or 800-639-4065
or 334-7316
Family Center of Washington County
383 Sherwood Drive
Montpelier 05602
262-3292
www.fcwcvt.org
Rutland County Parent Child Center
61 Pleasant Street
Rutland 05701
775-9711
www.rcpcc.org
Orange County Parent Child Center
361 VT Route 110
Chelsea 05038
685-2264 or 888-685-2264
The Family Place
319 US Route 5 South
Norwich 05055
649-3268
familyplace.org
Parent Child Centers
• Serve as clearinghouses for information about child development and family support;
• Provide home-based visits to families with young children;
• Offer playgroups;
• Provide opportunities for parent education; and
• Advocate for family-centered services in the community.
Lund
76 Glen Road, PO Box 4009
Burlington 05406-4009
864-7467
Lamoille Family Center
480 Cady’s Falls Road
Morrisville 05661
888-5229
www.lamoillefamilycenter.org
Milton Family Community Center
23 Villemaire Lane, PO Box 619
Milton 05468-0619
893-1457
www.miltonfamilycenter.org
Sunrise Family Resource Center
238 Union Street, PO Box 1517
Bennington 05201
442-6934
sunrisefamilyresourcecenter.com
Springfield Area Parent Child Center
6 Main Street
North Springfield
05150 886-5242 800-808-4442
www.sapcc-vt.org
3. 1
A
cross the nation, teenage pregnancy tends
to repeat itself: teen parents are usually the
children of teen parents. The same generational
cycling is very often true of poverty, lack of success in
school and employment, substance abuse, domestic
violence, and child abuse. These are struggles that
many teen parents know all too well.
If we can break the cycle of teen pregnancy — and,
beyond that, if we can empower young parents who
have grown up in poverty to build the skills, attitudes,
and self-esteem they need to be good parents and
succeed in careers — then we can create positive
impacts that can widen, deepen, and keep growing
through new generations.
It’s for these reasons that, 12 years ago, an outcome
indicator reported by the Addison County Parent Child
Center in Middlebury, Vermont won national attention.
Then 20 years old, the center said that among more
than 200 children it had served in its first five years,
most of them born to teen parents, only nine had
returned as teen parents themselves. That rate of 0.45
percent compared to a national average of 50 percent.
The Addison
center was Vermont’s
first parent child
center — and
between 1979, just
before its doors
opened, and 2002,
Addison County’s
teen pregnancy
rate dropped by 85
percent to become
the state’s lowest.
The county’s rates
of child abuse and
neglect, and of
teenagers involved in
the judicial system,
were also among
Introduction
Healthy Families, Hopeful Futures
Vermont’s lowest.
Something positive was happening. Its main cause
was clear.
“It’s really profound, the difference”
The Addison center had early on created a program
it called Learning Together. The idea was that young
parents, nearly all of them mothers and most from
chaotic, troubled backgrounds, would build positive
parenting skills while also doing meaningful work at
the parent child center: providing child care, answering
phones, and/or working in the kitchen or office for
about 20 hours each week.
The mothers earned a modest stipend while
developing both job experience and the vital “soft”
skills — dependability, presentation, collaboration with
others — that they would need for future employment.
They also, with careful and patient help from center
staff, built crucial self-esteem, the sense that they
deserved and could create a better life for themselves
and their children.
The young moms joined in workshops and
presentations that
built parenting
and life skills. They
received child
care, counseling,
and other needed
services. At home,
visits from outreach
workers supported
their parenting
and their families.
At the center they
supported each
other, and they
worked with licensed
educators to set and
achieve personal
educational goals,
4. 2
such as finishing high school and going
on to higher education.
The program was working. “It’s really
profound, the difference you can see —
quicker than you could ever imagine,”
noted Sue Harding, then the center’s
co-director.
“The program is structured to
give each participant a variety of
experiences and contact with a variety
of staff members,” explains the center’s
Learning Together manual. “There
are many opportunities each day to
succeed, and many ways in which those
successes are recognized.”
Overall, Learning Together had
such a striking impact in Addison
County that, beginning in 2003, the
Vermont Parent Child Center Network
(VPCCN), the association of the state’s
15 centers, began an effort to replicate the innovative
program statewide. Supported by a grant from the U.S.
Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, parent child
centers around the state began developing their own
versions of Learning Together, each adapting the model
to its local needs, ideas, and resources.
Vital components & protective factors
Each parent child center offers eight Core Services:
• home visiting
• parent education
• parent support
• early childhood services
• on-site services
• playgroups
• information and referral
• community development.
To help guide centers in the implementation of
Learning Together, the Vermont Parent Child Center
Network set out a series of five phases, from startup to
full operation.
Also, while encouraging local adaptations, it set out
these 10 components that each program must include:
• Onsite child care
• Onsite work experience
• Academics leading to a high school diploma or
equivalent
• Access to counseling
• Many support-group opportunities
• Availability of crisis intervention
• Incentives that are positive motivators
• Transportation
• Professional staff, along with interns and volunteers
• Communal nutritious meals.
Over the past 12 years, this process of building local
versions of Learning Together (centers sometimes give
it new or modified names, such as Families Learning
Together) has continued. As a research-based, best
practice model, this initiative across Vermont has both
helped inform and been influenced by Strengthening
Families, a framework developed by the nonprofit
Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP).
Strengthening Families focuses on building five vital
“protective factors”:
• Parental resilience
• Social connections
• Concrete support in times of need
• Knowledge of parenting and child development
• Social and emotional competence of children.
Measuring impacts across Vermont
It’s now possible to begin measuring the broad,
statewide impacts of Learning Together. This report
5. 3
presents the first results of an effort to do just that.
In 2011, with funding from a three-year grant
provided by the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services’ Office of Adolescent Health, the
Vermont Department for Children and Families
(DCF) began providing funds to parent child centers
to support their Learning Together programs. The
federal grant calls for the measurement of impacts; as
a result, DCF contracted with Flint Springs Associates,
of Hinesburg and Stowe, Vermont, to carry out semi-
annual evaluations of program performance and the
outcomes achieved by participants.
In the pages that follow, personal stories of Learning
Together participants around Vermont are combined
with simple presentations of key findings from the
first year’s assessment report by Flint Springs, to
demonstrate program outcomes at centers statewide.
The July 2012 assessment includes these findings:
• Repeat pregnancies: Among 170 participating
parents on whom we have followup data, only two
became pregnant again while enrolled in a Learning
Together program.
• Academic achievement: While 62 percent of
participants had no high school diploma or
equivalent when they joined the program, 17
percent had earned their diplomas and 78 percent
were working toward their diplomas at the time of
the assesssment.
• Work readiness: “Significant improvements occured
from Intake to Update in commitment to quality,
work habits, communication and interpersonal
effectiveness for the
108 participants,” says
the assessment report.
• Positive parenting:
“Participants’ comfort
with their ability
to provide positive
parenting” also
improved significantly,
the report says.
• Use of birth control:
When they joined the
program, about one in
five participants were
sexually active but not using birth control. At the
time of the assessment, 44 percent of those who had
not used birth control at the start of the program
were now using it consistently.
Preventing problems, achieving dreams
When young parents set and achieve positive goals
— when they discover the rewards of parenting in
skillful ways without violence, when they learn how
they can succeed in the workplace, and when they find
they can make a positive impact on their communities
— it’s clear that some costly problems, from chronic
unemployment to domestic violence and child abuse,
are far less likely to occur.
Not every parent who enrolls in Learning Together
succeeds. Some leave and come back, even several
times; some drop out and don’t return. But across the
state, the central impact of these programs is clear:
Learning Together is helping participants to build
healthy families, to become and to raise confident,
productive citizens.
Our parent child centers are making it possible for
young parents — mothers and, increasingly, fathers as
well — to achieve their dreams of a better life.
“I wanted to get my diploma. I didn’t want to be
a statistic,” said Felisha Williams, whose involvement
with the Rutland Area Parent Child Center helped her
work through homelessness to complete high school
and enroll in higher education.
Felisha’s story, with her husband Jonathan and their
young son, is among those profiled in these pages. So is
that of Olivia Couture, a young mother in Colchester
who has struggled
up from the depths
of opiate addiction
in partnership with
the Lund center of
Burlington.
“I don’t think I’d be
where I am without
this place,” Olivia
says. “They’ve helped
me connect with the
supports I have — and
they’ve held my hand
every step of the way.”
6. 4
W
hen Rosa Bensley
got pregnant
during her 10th
grade year in high school,
she felt like an outcast.
“Everyone just stares
at you — teachers and
parents,” she says. “My
friends’ parents thought I
was a bad influence. I felt
like I didn’t belong there
any more.”
Rosa left school, but soon
got involved with Learning
Together at the Springfield
Area Parent Child Center.
Participants spend weekdays
at the center; they place
their children in child
care as needed, rotate
among worksite jobs in
the morning, and do high
school classes, or other
educational projects, each afternoon.
Here, Rosa felt she belonged.
“The thing that really helped me the most was the
other students, who were going through the same
thing,” she says. “I could see what to expect, and we
had a lot in common. We had the same struggles.”
She made good friendships. She took healthy-
baby classes, and she worked at each of the center’s
worksites: child care, the kitchen, reception/clerical,
and the thrift store.
“I’ve learned a lot,” Rosa says — “how to present
myself well, stay calm when five calls are coming
in, work on my own at the thrift store. I’m a really
independent woman.”
Springfield
“I Would Like to Keep Moving
Up and Up”
She took high school
classes from Bruce Parks, a
retired high school teacher
who is the Springfield
center’s education
coordinator. It took three
years, but last June, Rosa
accepted her high school
diploma. This fall, she
began taking classes toward
certification as a licensed
nursing assistant.
“If I hadn’t come here,
I would be struggling a lot
more,” she reflects. “I know I
wouldn’t have gone back to
high school. I’d probably be
working at a part-time job,
struggling with child care.”
Today, Rosa has
confidence, a ready smile,
and an apartment in
Springfield with her two
boys. Educationally, she says, “I would like to keep
moving up and up.”
She is especially grateful to Bruce Parks.
“He pushed me. He said, ‘You can do this.’ That’s
what I needed.”
High School Diploma or Equivalent
When they joined Learning Together, 62% of
those surveyed had not earned a high school
diploma. Among those, by the time of the survey,
95% had either earned their diploma (17%) or were
working toward it (78%).
7. 5
L
ast June, Richard
Notestine was
in Arkansas,
staying with relatives
and working at a
manufacturing job, when
he learned that his two-
year-old son’s mother
had been killed in a car
accident in northeastern
Vermont. He got on a
Greyhound bus that day.
Two days later,
Richard was in St.
Johnsbury with his son,
Scotty. With no job, no
car, and no money, he
turned to Northeast
Kingdom Community Action.
NEKCA’s St. Johnsbury center houses outreach and
crisis services along with Reach Up, a food shelf, and
the Learning Together program. Richard needed help,
and he knew it. Scotty’s grandmother, on his mom’s
side, wanted the little boy with her — but Richard was
determined to step up and be a dad.
NEKCA worked with Richard to help him and
Scotty get into a small shelter, with access to healthy
food, and to get Richard signed up with Reach Up, for
which Learning Together is a worksite. Each weekday, a
NEKCA van brought father and son to the center.
Before long, the two were living in a small
apartment they’d found with NEKCA’s help. Scotty
was in child care at the center, while Richard, who is
hearing-impaired and has a degenerative hip disorder,
did all kinds of odd jobs here.
“Everything they needed done, I jumped up and did
it,” he says.
But when the Department for Children and Families
became concerned about a scratch on Scotty’s face
St. Johnsbury
“We’d Probably Be on the Street”
— he’d got it, DCF
determined, falling off
his bike — Richard
became the focus of a
sustained effort by the
grandmother to take the
boy away.
“I’ve got to constantly
keep proving myself,
that I’m not an unfit
father,” Richard says.
“Of course, we’re
a mandated reporter,”
notes Deanna Lyford,
Learning Together
coordinator at NEKCA
South in St. J. “But
through all that’s going
on, we’ve been able to back up Scotty doing well here,
and that he looks great when he comes here.”
Scotty is in a preschool program for four-year-olds
now, and Richard has built a stable relationship with
another young parent in Learning Together. With help
from NEKCA’s van, the couple and their children
recently moved into a larger apartment together. After
he receives a needed hip replacement, Richard hopes
to get married and get his high school diploma.
“I’ve seen big changes in Scotty,” says Deanna — “but
actually, I’ve seen the biggest changes in Richard. He
always wants to do what’s best for Scott.
“We had a staff meeting a couple of weeks ago, and
we were all talking about our highlights. And I kid you
not,” she says to Richard, “your name came up with
about half the staff members, because we have seen
such a change in you.”
“All the services I’ve been getting are pretty much
through here,” says Richard. Without NEKCA’s help,
he reflects, “We’d probably be living on the street.
Scotty would be away from me, and I’d ... I’d be gone.”
8. 6
Positive Parenting Skills
Parents completed a self-assessment on their
positive parenting skills, comparing these skills
when they started in Learning Together to
the time of the update. To 28 statements —
for example, “I enjoy spending time with my
children” — each gave a response, from
“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”
Between intake and update, on this
assessment of positive parenting skills,
participants’ scores increased by a
statistically significant average of 35%.
Satisfaction with the Program
132 program participants were asked if they
agreed, disagreed, or were neutral about three
statements indicating satisfaction with the
Learning Together program:
1. “My family and I were treated with respect” —
95% agreed or strongly agreed, 1% disagreed.
2. “My calls & questions were responded to in a
timely manner” — 88% agreed, 3% disagreed.
3. “The services I and my family received made a
difference” — 92% agreed, 1% disagreed.
(Neutral responses not included in this summary.)
9. 7
Readiness for Work
Through a “Learning and Employability Profile,” parent child center staff members
assessed, at intake and then at update, each participant’s readiness for work.
In each of five categories, staff assigned each participant’s progress a score. Among 108 participants
surveyed on this, the following percentages made measurable progress between intake and update:
Every Center’s Eight Core Services
Across Vermont, each parent child center offers eight core services:
• home visiting
• parent education
• parent support
• early childhood services
• on-site services
• playgroups
• information and referral
• community development
Commitment to quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35%
Work habits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38%
Communication: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44%
Interpersonal Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35%
Attendance and punctuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28%
10. 8
A
year ago, when young mother
Britney Bowers got involved
with the Family Center of
Washington County, Jessie Casavant,
the center’s Learning Together
coordinator, wasn’t sure how much
progress Britney would make.
“She presented as someone
who would take some time to get
motivated and invested in the goals
of the program,” Jessie recalls.
Britney had no job and no driver’s
license — and her parents, concerned
about the welfare of their grandson,
were trying to gain custody of her
son Bryson.
“I was being selfish. I wasn’t ready
to be a mom,” Britney agrees. “Bryson’s father went
away to jail a month after he was born, and I didn’t
know how to do this by myself. But after a while, I
realized I was going to lose my son if I didn’t smarten
up.”
At first, she wasn’t reliably showing up for her
worksite duties at the Montpelier center. “Jessie would
tell me, ‘You can’t do that if you want to get a regular
job,’” she says. “I did want to get a regular job. When I
started working here, I started getting it back together.
Having Bryson in child care here full-time really
helped.”
“I knew it was going to take a bit of work to get her
to really buy into the program,” Jessie adds. “But when
she started coming a lot, she began to figure out her
expectations of herself. I started to see that growth
come through.”
Last spring, Britney told Jessie she had landed
a full-time job, working with people who’ve had
traumatic brain injuries. She needed to know if the
Family Center would still provide Bryson with child
care. “Absolutely,” Jessie said. Britney could even bring
Bryson in a little early, to have their transition time
Montpelier
“I Can Rely on Myself Now”
before Britney left for work.
Today, Britney and Jessie reflect on how much can
change in a year.
“When I came here, I had nothing,” Britney says.
“Now I have my license, I have my own car payment
and insurance, I have my own place, I’m working every
day — and my parents are really proud of me. I’m
proud that I’ve got Bryson all the time, and I can give
him all he needs without relying on someone else. I can
rely on myself now.”
“Somehow,” Jessie says, “through all that, she grew
up. She accepted all these responsibilities. Now, even
when she’s really tired, she comes in here with a smile.”
Use of Birth Control
At intake, 19% of participants said they
were not using birth control or
were using it inconsistently.
Within that group at update,
44% said they were now using birth control.
11. 9
T
alk about a low
point. When
Lyza Rogers
got involved with
the Family Place in
Norwich, she was in
an abusive marriage.
She and her husband
were both unemployed;
they were living in a
camper, and she had
lost custody of her two
sons to the state.
The Vt. Department
for Children and
Families had become
involved after Lyza’s husband smashed her car window
with a crowbar while she and her sons were nearby.
At DCF’s urging, she moved with the boys into the
Upper Valley Haven, a homeless shelter in White River
Junction.
But she later lost custody of her boys after she had
allowed them to spend time with their father. For her,
that was very much a low point.
“I needed to do something, other than sitting home,”
she says. “So I came here.”
Through Families Learning Together at the Family
Place, Lyza gained experience in the various worksites.
She’d had experience with child care, and that was the
natural fit. The younger moms were drawn to her.
“She was a kind of quiet haven,” says Families
Learning Together coordinator Heléne Meloche.
Lyza’s boys had seen a lot, and the parenting classes
here “gave me different ways to deal with my sons’
behaviors,” she says. “The counseling gave me support
when I needed it. Not having to keep it all inside.”
“There’s definitely been a big change in Lyza,”
Heléne observes. “Coming here exposed her to a good
Norwich
“Coming Here ...
Helped Her to Rise Up”
model of women. That
helped her to rise up.”
Family Place staff
worked closely with
Lyza as she sought
to regain custody of
her boys. She found a
subsidized apartment,
and began divorce
proceedings. Following
up on regular visits to
her new home, outreach
workers attested that
she was providing a safe,
caring environment.
Working with the
center staff, Lyza adds, “I was seeing what I needed to
set up for the boys — what services I could get that
will wrap around them and help them.”
She did regain custody. Today, Lyza and the boys
continue to receive counseling at the center. She is
looking for a larger apartment, and she recently started
a part-time job in the center’s child care program.
“Becoming employed by The Family Place has
allowed Lyza to come full circle,” says Heléne. “We are
glad to welcome her as part of the staff.”
Repeat Pregnancies
Of 170 participants surveyed, 92% had at least
one child, or were pregnant, when they began
with Learning Together.
By the time of the update — in nearly all cases,
at least 10 months later — only two participants
had become pregnant again.
12. 10
I
grew up in a supportive, happy, loving family — but
I just had a really tough time. I was diagnosed with
depression and other mental health issues,” recalls
Olivia Couture, 25, whose son Noah is four months
old. “I just felt like I wasn’t part of things.”
At 16, Olivia fractured her tailbone in a swimming
accident. “That’s what started my addiction to opiates,”
she says. “I started out small-time, with Percoset. I
thought I could handle it; but as time went on, it got
worse and worse.”
Olivia graduated from Colchester High School,
and became a licensed nursing assistant. She had an
apartment, a car, and a job. But she had also graduated
to oxycodone and heroin, and progressed from pills to
needles. Drawn to controlling relationships with other
drug users, she tended to do whatever her boyfriend
wanted.
“I didn’t really have an identity outside the
relationship,” she says. “It was always about him.”
In time that led to Olivia using credit cards that
a boyfriend had stolen. “I kind of followed his lead,”
she says. When the law caught up to them, she had
stolen property and credit cards in her car. And she was
pregnant.
The court suggested that she contact Lund.
A parent child center in Burlington, Lund offers
wraparound services for parents in need, operates
Learning Together, and has a residential treatment
program for single mothers with mental health or
addiction issues. Olivia moved into the facility in
October 2011.
She had, by then, stopped using drugs.
“I always told myself I’d get clean if I got pregnant,”
Olivia says. She had crossed every other line she had
set — but this promise, she was determined to keep.
At Lund, she worked with a case manager and a
counselor. She joined in support groups and took
parenting classes. She did her onsite work experience,
and mentored a younger mother.
Burlington
“I’ve Come a Long Way”
At first, Olivia was “anxious and angry,” says Hope
Love, her therapeutic case manager. “Over time, I
saw that completely shift. She transformed into this
confident young woman — very independent and
intelligent, very motivated. She’s taken what Lund
offers and applied it to her life.”
A year after starting the program, Olivia is still
drug-free. She’s living at her parents’ home, having
gradually regained and rebuilt their trust. She has a
deferred sentence on her criminal conviction, with
the opportunity to expunge her record. She’s doing
community service, paying restitution, and rebuilding
her credit.
“I don’t think I’d be where I am without this
place,” she says. “They’ve helped me connect with the
supports I have, and held my hand every step of the
way.
“I think the biggest thing was learning to stick up
for myself — getting my identity back, and creating
boundaries. I’ve come a long way.
“My mom has told me she will always be grateful
to Lund,” Olivia adds. “I have an amazing relationship
with my family now. She never thought I’d be this way
again.”
“
13. 11
Jonathan and Felisha Williams are a married
couple who spent their childhoods in and out of
homelessness. Today, the red mortarboard cap
from Jonathan’s 2011 Rutland High School graduation
hangs from the ceiling in the Learning Together
classroom at the Rutland County Parent Child Center.
He and Felisha, who was awarded her diploma
in 2008, both earned their credits in this room.
Jonathan now works full-time in the center’s toddler
room while their son Jonathan Eno, who is five,
attends kindergarten at a city primary school. Felisha
is enrolled in a training program, at Porter Medical
Center in Middlebury, to become a licensed nursing
assistant.
“I want to get into an RN program,” she says. “This is
my foot in the door.”
“Hopefully, she’ll be the first to get a high school
diploma and a college degree,” says Jonathan, who’s
now thinking about college as well.
It’s a dramatic turnaround for a couple whose
background seemingly equipped them for little more
than survival. Just before they got involved with
Learning Together, they were working at a dunk tank at
the Tunbridge Fair, and sleeping behind the tank with
their three-year-old son.
“It was freezing,” Jonathan recalls.
“I got introduced to Learning Together when we
came down here to Rutland,” Felisha recalls. “I was 16,
Jonathan was 15. I wanted to get my diploma. I didn’t
want to be a statistic.”
“I think one of the things about the program that
really works is all the services that get wrapped around
guys like these,” notes Tammy Cabezola, who teaches
in the program alongside retired educator John Dunlap.
“John and I do the teaching,” she says — “but you
have to have everybody. And we’re all like a big family.”
When Felicia started studying here, Jonathan came
too. At first he just did odd jobs, and never dreamed he
could return to school, too.
Rutland
“We’re All Like a Big Family”
“I couldn’t keep my attention on somebody for five
minutes,” he says. “But I sat down and listened to this
lady,” he says of Tammy. “She said, ‘Get back to school.’
So I did.”
Jonathan was the first dad to graduate from Learning
Together at Rutland in the program’s history — but
after he enrolled, other fathers grew interested. The
most recent class of 11 students included three dads.
Meanwhile, Felisha and Jonathan got married last
spring. He’s been working weekends on John Dunlap’s
farm, helping build a barn and refusing pay.
“These guys can do anything they set their minds to,”
notes Tammy. “They’re survivors.”
14. 12
Personal and Parenting Impacts
Participants were asked if they agreed or disagreed that
Learning Together had helped them:
1. “Improve my parenting skills” — 75% agreed, 5% disagreed.
2. “Reach my goals for myself and my family” — 81% agreed,
6% disagreed.
3. “Become more ready for work” — 83% agreed, 9% disagreed.
4. “Go further in my education” — 74% agreed, 8% disagreed.
(Neutral responses not included.)
Federal: 3,598,895
State: 10,330,413
Local: 1,034,200
Medicaid: 3,450,591
Foundations: 392,711
Tuition Private: 662,521
Fundraising: 834,988
Other: 394,806
PCC Network Revenue FY12
Above: The sources of
revenue for Vermont
Parent Child Center
Network members
statewide.
Left: Jewelry made in
a Learning Together
job-skills program at
The Family Place,
Norwich.
15. “I Am the One”
A poem by Christina Frost, a wife, mother, and participant in
Learning Together at the Addison County Parent Child Center.
I am the one who … puts everything before me.
I am the one who … gets up at 6:30 every morning.
I am the one who … cleans a two story house every day.
I am the one who … listens to the stories my kids tell.
“Mommy my tooth falled out.”
I am the one who … plays wacky games with my kids even when
people look at me funny.
“Simon says touch your head and your belly.”
I am the one who … takes the kids to the doctor when they need to go.
Hailey fights with me the whole time.
I am the one who … goes to school four days a week.
I am the one who … is always listening to music, country, hip hop and rap.
I am the one who ... would like to be dancing in the rain.
I am the one who … is pursuing her dreams of completing high school.
I am the one who … dreams about being a marine biologist.
I am the one who … seems normal on the outside.
I am the one who … is screaming for help on the inside.
I am the one who … sits in a quiet corner in a room full of people.
I am the one who … lets everyone vent to me about their problems.
I am the one who … looks at the sky thinking about the limits it can set
and lets it guide my mind to the rest of my life.
I am the one who … is dreaming of being happy.
Credits: Text by Doug Wilhelm, Weybridge, with the Vermont Parent Child Center Network. Photographs on the front cover and on pages 1-3 and 6-7 by
Bob Eddy, Randolph. Other photos by Doug Wilhelm. Page design and graphics by Newcomb Studios, Montpelier.
