Hostos is family. And for close to 50 years, the College has nurtured that ideal.
Now, a $150,000 grant from the New York State Department of Health will allow Hostos to help families stay strong by assisting expectant and parenting teens and young adults to complete their education, maintain healthy lifestyles, and be nurturing parents.
The support services that will be funded from this one-year grant will work toward continuing the services offered over the past four years in Hostos’ Health and Wellness Unit’s
Empowering Student Parents (ESP) program.
The overall goal is to create a sustainable program that adopts a holistic and integrated approach to support expectant and parenting teens, women, fathers, and their families through five core service domains by direct service provisions, linkages and referrals.
“We are very happy that Health and Wellness will be able to continue to support our expectant and student parents at Hostos,” said Fabián Wander, Director of the Health and Wellness Unit. “We understand how challenging it is to manage the responsibilities of being a parent and college student at the same time. We want the students to know that we will support them though their educational journey and needs as a parent.”
The Unit is staffed with clinical social workers, a registered nurse, a wellness specialist, community health educators and social work graduate students who provide direct services and build on community partnership for expectant and parenting students.
Leading the way in this initiative, Hostos will serve as a mentor to other CUNY institutions that agree to participate in the Pathways to Success program, including LaGuardia and Borough of Manhattan community colleges.
Specifically, this funding will assist to:
- Hire staff to strengthen linkages with community organizations that service parenting and expectant young adults into the Pathways to Success program.
- Collaborate with other service providers in the community to enhance sustainability for our expectant and parenting teens, women, fathers, and their families, including other funded implementation sites.
- Update the comprehensive needs and resource assessment, which is critical to identifying gaps in services, informing program activities and ensuring that grant expectations are met.
- Build on internal partnerships that support the overall health and academic success of parenting and expectant student.
- Collaborate with the LYFE program in encouraging students to enroll in higher education or vocational goals.
- Participate in all required DOH trainings including a Learning Collaborative.
- Collect data on project participants and submit reports as required by the NYSDOH.
About Hostos Community College
Eugenio María de Hostos Community College is an educational agent for change that has been transforming and improving the quality of life in the South Bronx and neighboring communities for nearly half a century. Since 1968, Hostos has been a gateway to intellectual growth and socioeconomic mobility, as well as a point of departure for lifelong learning, success in professional careers, and transfer to advanced higher education programs.
Hostos offers 27 associate degree programs and two certificate programs that facilitate easy transfer to The City University of New York’s (CUNY) four-year colleges or baccalaureate studies at other institutions. The College has an award-winning Division of Continuing Education & Workforce Development that offers professional development courses and certificate-bearing workforce training programs. Hostos is part of CUNY, the nation’s leading urban public university, which serves more than 500,000 students at 24 colleges.