The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective

1. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective MISSION: “The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective supports disadvantaged young mothers in developing into healthy, educated, self-sufficient women who are actively engaged in community life” 1

2. BYMC was founded in 2004 to help disadvantaged young mothers become self-sufficient adults. • We do this because we believe that by supporting young mothers through individualized support services focused on education and vocational opportunities, we help them imagine a more positive future themselves, their children and communities • . The strength of our intervention is the depth of engagement we have with each young mother. Our work is highly personalized, and as result, we have high impact..

3. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective • The Members of the Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective are young women ages 12-21 who are pregnant and/or parenting. • They come primarily from the Central Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, Bedford Stuyvesant, and East New York though BYMC serves young women from across the city. • They come from primarily Black, Caribbean, and Latina communities.

4. Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective One Member’s Story

5. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective Program Goals Linked to Implementation Strategy Educational Attainment • Education Advocacy to ensure positive school engagement and academic support Developing Advocacy and Leadership Skills • Advocacy and Thought Leadership Academy which involves a knowledge and skill development curriculum Delaying Subsequent Births • Power Sisters Academy which provides comprehensive sexuality and reproductive health education and facilitates the development of a peer network Fostering the Health of Both Child and Mother and the Bond Between Them • BYMC doula activities provide education, emotional and physical support to young mothers during the prenatal and postpartum period to help them stay connected to BYMC, education and vocational opportunities Developing Civic and Community Involvement • BYMC provides legal information workshops on topics including violence prevention, housing rights and reproductive justice

6. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective The Issues • Access to an education that matters can be a huge obstacle for young mothers seeking to end the cycle of poverty in their lives and families lives. • A history of disconnection from school and a lack of credits often present themselves a key matters of concern in advocating for and obtaining access to a quality education in NYC public schools. • BYMC routinely leverages our work with the Department of Education around the Chancellor’s regulations and Title IX in advocating for members’ access to school. • In 2008 we created a Principal’s Toolkit for use in schools to educate and advocate around issues of access and the law. Education Access

7. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective The Issues Reproductive Justice • Members often experience their rights and best interests being compromised by systems, institutions, and individuals focusing on their status as mothers and not on their status as children themselves. • Their experiences of early-childbearing , rather than their status as children, become the mitigating factor in their treatment and access to other resources. • BYMC’s focus on the lives and futures of the young women, rather than on their children, pushes for a recognition of their girlhood and their rights as children even as they are or are in the process of becoming parents. • The Reproductive Justice framework allows for their experiences of motherhood and early childbearing to be viewed through multiple lenses rather than couching their experiences in issues of “choice” alone.

8. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective The Issues The members of Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective come primarily from the Central Brooklyn communities of Brownsville, Bedford –Stuyvesant, and East New York. These communities have very high per capita poverty rates and the corresponding health disparities and crime rates. Economic Justice

9. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ CollectivePutting it all together • BYMC has strategically built alliances with leading experts on early childbearing and outcomes for teen mothers. We have been able to leverage those relationships to stay connected with the most evidenced based and up to date information on working with teen mothers.

10. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ CollectiveKey Collaborators Organizations: • Health Connect One • NYC Department of Education • National Women’s Law Center • Advocates for Children • Brownsville Partnership Academia: • Frank Furstenberg • Wanda Pillow • Dorothy Roberts

11. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective • Our work is driven by the needs and dreams that come out of the lives of the young women we work with. Our policy pushes are developed as we perceive patterns in our day to day work on the ground in the schools and communities of our members.

12. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ CollectiveChallenges • Our biggest challenges come from efforts to systematize an approach to addressing the huge obstacles of poverty, health disparities and the undereducation of young people in our communities one young woman at a time through the depth of our engagement, which is what we have seen as the most success-bearing approach to the work.

13. Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective A Return to One Member’s Story

14. The Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective

15. How To Contact Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective • Phone 718.596.7074 • Fax 718.596.7014 • Website: http://www.bymcinc.org • Email: Aisha@bymcinc.org and Benita@bymcinc.org • Facebook Causes: Brooklyn Young Mothers’ Collective • Mailing Address: 388 Atlantic Avenue, 3rd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11207