Statement of RoseAnne Bilodeau, Executive Director,
Greater New Britain Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Inc., New Britain, Connecticut

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources
of the House Committee on Ways and Means

Hearing on Teen Pregnancy Prevention

November 15, 2001

Good morning Mr. Chairman and honorable subcommittee members.  It is with a deep sense of honor that I appear before you today to share our teen pregnancy prevention findings from Connecticut’s Sixth District, Congresswoman Johnson’s home town of New Britain.

My name is RoseAnne Bilodeau.  I am the founder and Executive director of Greater New Britain Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Inc., more commonly known as the Pathways/Senderos Center.

We originated eight and one half years ago, as a neighborhood-based, coed, teen pregnancy prevention youth and family center.  We are an independent, private, non-profit organization dedicated strictly to providing successfully evaluated, long-term, comprehensive, holistic prevention services.

Our Board of Directors is comprised mostly of successful business people, lawyers, bankers and a few other key community stakeholders such as the Superintendent of Schools, Director of Family Planning, the clergy and leadership from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Our annual evaluation conducted by Philliber Research Associates of Accord, New York, documents that only two of our participants have ever created a pregnancy, while 100% remain in school; with only 25% have ever been involved in a physical fight; 4% have ever carried a weapon; and only 8% have tried cigarette smoking.

Our program population is 50 10-18 year olds from one of New Britain’s poverty-stricken neighborhoods.  All of our children are Latino, mostly Puerto Rican, while the others come from Peru, Columbia, Mexico and Panama.  For most, English is a second language.

At least 80% of our (pre)teens come from families started by teen parents.  Some of the children are being raised by their biological parents, while others are raised by their single grandmothers or mothers who may be single, married to a stepfather or living with a boyfriend.  Our TANF-dependent families were affected by the first wave of Connecticut’s welfare reform.  All are currently employed in low-paying, entry-level jobs with many working as certified nursing assistants.  Our families are members of the working poor, people who run out of food frequently while trying to make ends meet.  At Pathways/Senderos we also provide food and clothing pantries.  We distribute at least one bag of groceries a day.

Our program model and philosophy are based upon the work of Dr. Michael Carrera and the New York’s Children’s Aid Society, which was recently identified as being successful by the National Campaign’s “Emerging Answers” report.  We believe that by participating in a safe environment with a parallel family structure every day after school and during the summer that young vulnerable people can develop the skills and inner fortitude necessary to avoid negative, risk-taking behaviors and instead engage in activities that encourage academic success, and where they can make the right choices to eventually attain self-sufficient adulthoods.

Ours is a child-focused, family systems intervention, which involves us with families for years.  Our primary service components emphasize education, career/vocational exploration, community service projects, family life and sex education, arts and life-long sporting activities. We have also started a business, Barcodes aRe Us, a bulk-mailing service, which trains and employs our age-eligible youth who maintain at least a “C” average in school.  Our business also provides a source of revenue for us.

Our Board of Directors is finalizing a year-long strategic planning process which will identify an expansion of our scope of services to include additional children from the elementary grades.  Currently we recruit sixth grade students.  Since welfare reform, our data indicates that the children now spend less time with their parent(s), and have greater exposure to and involvement with risk-taking behaviors than did their peers prior to welfare reform.  We would like to reach out to these younger children who may not be properly supervised when out of school.  We would like to involve children at an earlier age with our philosophy of hard work, cooperation, making the right choices and team effort.

Although we currently “save” the youth who are most likely to fall between the cracks, we believe that we could be so much more successful in moving poverty-stricken children and their families forward if we had the resources to serve more children at an earlier age.  Pathways/Senderos assists vulnerable families by providing intensive, long term, multi-faceted services.  Over time, we have seen so many families slowly overcome the barriers created by undeveloped education, limited skill training and lack of English language skills.  With our daily involvement, the children flourish and prosper.  As they grow in this positive manner, the rest of the family follows, including parents and extended family.

Pathways/Senderos is also credited by the local clergy with contributing to the stabilization of our highly transient, inner-city neighborhood.  When we first arrived, local gangs controlled the area and neighborhood teens either joined a gang for protection or stayed in their apartments.  The police cleaned out the gangs and Pathways Senderos replaced them as the option of choice.

We have created a positive peer group, which carries on when we are not there on some weekends and during school hours.  Our youngsters bond as a family and strive together to become responsible, civic-minded, self-sufficient citizens.