NEW YORK – Loyal Harmoni Harris travels every day to Bronx Regional High School, where she learns emotional, motor and language skills. Loyal is a little younger than the other high school students; in fact, he is only 2 years old.
That's because Loyal is part of a New York City-only program called LYFE: Living for the Young Family through Education. LYFE offers free early childhood education to student parents who attend public schools in the city. Loyal's mother, Honesti Meléndez, is 16 years old and attends high school in the same building where her daughter learns.
LYFE is not new. It is more than 30 years old and serves more than 300 early childhood students in 31 centers throughout the city. But from its beginnings as a child care initiative for young mothers, LYFE has grown into a three-generation educational program that officials and experts say can help not only student parents, but also their children and families.
“We became more than a babysitter,” says Mignon Callender, former LYFE student and current LYFE teacher. “We know we are teaching more than just the kids in this program.”
Some of the benefits of such a program for student parents are obvious. Having free child care makes it easier for them to stay in school and continue on their path to graduation. LYFE centers have expanded their hours so that parents of students can participate in extracurricular activities or maintain jobs.
But LYFE also offers other services. Each student parent is connected with a social worker who helps them chart a path forward and think about their future. Social workers also help other family members find jobs and solve other problems. Experienced educators help students learn parenting skills. Workshops and special outings familiarize students with the idea of college and other graduate opportunities.
And leaders say the program offers a judgment-free haven for students who often face stigma.
“What we don't do is come in with preconceived notions of why families are here,” says James Williams, LYFE program director. “They have been judged by their doctor. They have been judged by the bus driver, his friends, his parents. They are not judged by us.”
Melendez, Loyal's mother, says she sometimes feels that judgment from students her age, but the LYFE program has given her other priorities to focus on. Melendez didn't know anything about the program when she gave birth and frequently missed school to care for her baby. Today, her hope is not only to graduate, but also to attend college and become a lawyer.
“I love being here. I love their support, not only for the babies, but also for the parents,” says Meléndez. “To be honest, I don’t think I would be in high school if I didn’t have the LYFE center.”
For young children, the center is more than a safe environment to play. The program aims to offer high-quality education, even to infants, without income restrictions. (Programs like Early Head Start limit eligibility based on income and other factors, while New York City-wide preschool serves 4-year-olds.) Classrooms use a teacher-led, project-based curriculum called The Creative Curriculum, from Teaching Strategies. , to set objectives and design teaching plans.
Bronx Regional's rooms are colorful and well-equipped with learning tools such as water and sand tables and interactive areas for playing or getting familiar with books. Children learn how to put decorations on a tree or learn words about nature and camping.
“Working with our children in this school system starts with our youngest students,” says Kara Ahmed, current vice chancellor of early childhood education at the city Department of Education and former director of LYFE. “We have this amazing opportunity at LYFE to start as early as six weeks.”
Teen mothers and their children often face negative outcomes as they age. But that's not largely due to how old parents are when they have a child, but rather to the fact that teenagers who have children often find themselves in especially disadvantaged social and economic positions, says Stefanie Mollborn, a professor of Stockholm University and an affiliate of the University of Colorado Boulder that researches youth health and development. For example, about 30 percent of LYFE student parents are in temporary housing. And about half of the families in the program do not speak English as their primary language.
Although teenage parents begin to reach out to their peers in the early years of their children's lives, the children themselves they tend to start falling behind on their academic, cognitive, behavioral and health outcomes, Mollborn says.
“When these children start kindergarten, there are already quite considerable disadvantages, and when we look at the causes, we see that chronic poverty is one of the biggest ones,” he says. “In kindergarten and first grade, if you come in with a serious disadvantage, it can almost be game over. “Those disadvantages tend to grow like a snowball.”
But in Mollborn's research, children of teen parents who are able to stay in child care have better developmental outcomes than those who don't. About 90 percent of children in the LYFE program meet or exceed developmental outcome goals, according to city officials.
“Teen moms and dads are very, very motivated to do right by their kids and give them a really good life,” Mollborn says. “These are people who can especially benefit from early childhood education for their children.”
The LYFE program costs about $14 million per year to maintain, according to city officials.
Ayanna Blount, who has a young son in the LYFE program, is now an intern in addition to being a student. She wants to pursue a career as an ultrasound technician.
“If I didn't have this, I wouldn't be in school as much as I am now,” he said. “And I wouldn't have been able to achieve as much as I did so far.”
