Charity Profile
YWCA Nurse-Family Partnership fosters strong starts for teen mothers
Eighteen-year-old Angelica Rodriguez was not supposed have this life. Pregnant at 13 with little support and even fewer opportunities, Angelica joined the YWCA of Metropolitan Dallas’ Nurse-Family Partnership — a program that pairs a licensed nurse with a teen mom for 60 home visits over two years — through which she met Holly.
“Holly taught me everything — like what was happening with my body, that I should read to my son every day to help him build his vocabulary and how to keep control of tense situations with my family,” says Rodriguez, who fast-tracked high school and graduated with her associates in science.
Now she is pursuing a nursing degree at the University of Texas at Arlington. Rodriguez’s son, Sebastian, is also a star student — already reading in both English and Spanish at only 5 years old.
According to Jennifer Ware, CEO of the YWCA of Metropolitan Dallas, currently 286,000 women and girls live in poverty in Dallas County, and that number is expected to increase by another 100,000 by 2020. Programs such as these address poverty where it starts: in the family.
Vote now for the YWCA Nurse-Family Partnership— or any of the other worthy local nonprofits — in the CultureMap Charity Challenge.
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Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty is pleased to support the outstanding work of the YWCA.
