About Life's Choices

Our primary goal is to provide a safe residence, where teens can stabilize their lives and access social services which become available upon entry into our program. One of Life’s Choices’ residential programming goals is to have teens return to school, graduate and plan for post secondary education so as to be prepared for a career that will offer stability, medical insurance, and self-sufficiency.

Other goals are: to prevent repeat pregnancies; to insure proper prenatal care, so as to lesson the chances of low birth weight babies and subsequent developmental problems of high risk deliveries; early childhood intervention assessments that identify child development skills that need to be addressed or enhanced; and to participate in counseling with the goal of resolving present mental health issues, as well as past traumatic issues. Good parenting skills are taught and practiced by parents under staff supervision. Feedback from the staff helps moms to develop these skills. Socialization is another goal, the outcome of which is to develop feelings of belonging to family, neighborhood and community, by developing substantial ties. Applying for DTA benefits, such as food stamps and cash benefits, subsidized housing, and putting in applications for Section 8 housing are crucial for teens to become self-sufficient and able to support themselves and their children.

There is an urgent need for additional residential programming for pregnant and parenting teens in Hampden County. These teens are usually put on waiting lists. Presently, first time pregnant teens are not eligible for transitional aid for dependent children before they are 5 months pregnant, nor are they eligible for state contracted Teen Living Programs until they are 5½ months pregnant. These teens are accepted into Life’s Choices anytime during their pregnancy, even though they may not be eligible for Welfare cash benefits. Yet, Life’s Choices gives them comprehensive programming that meets all their needs, including helping them to access medical and prenatal care, educational services, counseling, career planning and housing search services. Because these teens are unable to live with a relative 21 years old or older, and are ineligible to live in other Teen Living Programs, Life’s Choices gives them their only opportunity to receive these needed comprehensive services and access to welfare benefits such as food stamps and cash benefits. At Life’s Choices, these needs are met. Our program provides teens with a residence that provides early and consistent interventions and facilitates access to community services in: subsidized housing searches, education, prenatal care, child birth, preventative medical care, early childhood intervention assessment and counseling, as well as teaching good parenting and life skills.

The root cause of this community need is that state funded TLPs’ eligibility requirements exclude those who are not yet 5½ months pregnant and are not already eligible to receive DTA benefits. Another root cause is the lack of a sufficient number of TLP beds to accommodate Massachusetts pregnant and / or parenting teens, so as to not uproot them from their community by placing them in the Boston area after being put on a long waiting list. Societal distribution of power impacts pregnant teens who are not at least 5½ months pregnant by not affording them the same opportunity to access services that they need immediately and by not giving other teen parents the ability to access local residential programming to meet their immediate needs within their own community.

Life’s Choices addresses these root causes by accepting teens during early stages of their pregnancies. We have provided 82 pregnant and / or parenting teens and  70 of their children shelter so as to allow local teens the ability to keep local ties and supports to stay in their chosen community.

Life’s Choices’ budget is reasonable for the scope of our work, due to the preventative nature of its programming and its frugal use of funds. Over time, proper prenatal care, preventative medical care, including immunization and therapy, prevention of repeat births, increased higher academic achievement and the acquisition of a better career that affords family medical insurance, will lesson a teen’s dependency on community, state and federal resources. Life’s Choices provides direct care staff coverage 24 hours a day / 7 days a week. The salaried executive director and program director serve also as: house parents, case manager, direct care providers and on call relief providers, cutting costs dramatically. Life’s Choices is able to provide comparable services at approximately half the cost of state funded TLPs. Our liability insurance premiums went down after the first year, due to no claims having been filed. Food, office, household and clothing costs continue to stabilize or decline due to donations and solicitations from area churches, community service groups, food banks, fundraisers and individuals. Prepayment of oil cuts heating costs. We have $8,000.00 in prepaid fuel for this heating season. Our sixteen room residence is also energy efficient, which saves on heating costs.
 

Life’s Choices - A Christian Youth Ministry, Inc.

129 Trafton Road
Springfield, MA 01108
Phone / Fax: (413) 731-6896