Neighborhood Parenting Program of By My Side

Hi!

I am Teri Ramsay, Executive Director. Welcome to our website!!

I think it is important to get to know the people who run any organization, especially ones that deal with children and families, so I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you a little about myself and the Neighborhood Parenting Program of By My Side.

Although the Parenting Program has been in existance for nearly 25 years, the past 2 have been especially significant.

For the first time in its history, this Neighborhood Parenting Program is an indepent organization.

Having spent the last 8 years working with local families as both a Certified Parent Educator for a Home-based Early Head Start/Head Start Program, Head Start Parent Involvement and Parenting Program Coordinator, I have seen the difference having someone to model and help guide parents/caregivers through the early stages of a child's life can make in the whole family's dynamic. The Parenting Program creates frienships, supports and opportunities to learn good skills for raising children that last long after they leave. Read on to get the full story.......

The Back Story

Started in the 1980's, the Neighborhood Parenting Program (NPP) began in Philadelphia through a grant from a large Foundation as a primary child abuse prevention program. I believe there were originally 13 pilot programs throughout the city. The only two I know that still exists are ours and the Frankford Group Ministries Parenting Program (please correct me if I'm wrong).

The thought behind this pilot project was that when parents learn about appropriate child development at various stages, they have more reasonable expectations for behavior and gain confidence in their skills. Couple that information with a really good social support system and the stress levels decrease leading to better family dynamics.

The program premiered under Booth Maternity Hospital. Over the years, it morphed through other organizations.....Osteopathic Hospital and The Preschool Project. In recent years, funding priorities shifted away from prevention programs such as ours devoting dwindling dollars to intervention agencies like the Department of Human Services.

The Shift

In order to maintain and grow what we know is a deperately needed service to the community, The Preschool Project Board of Directors and Executive Director had the vision in the late spring of 2007 to encourage NPP to strike out on its own. The Preschool Project had administered many valuable programs including Head Start Classrooms, full day childcare and technical support to those with Family Day Care Centers. They closed their doors in May 2008.

While NPP was always seen as a valuable asset, the cost of devoting so many hours to find the necessary funding to keep it going was becoming a struggle. Being a responsible "parent" organization, the best solution was to give NPP its wings and so here we are!

I coordinated NPP while underThe Preschool Project for many years and just happened to have had a nonprofit I founded 12 years ago that was collecting dust. By My Side was formed back then as an "Adopt-A-Family" network that connected formerly homeless mothers with churches for financial and social support. Once again, grant funding focuses shifted and, after two years, it became difficult to continue competing with direct service organizations for dollars and operations ceased.  It was just waiting to be reborn as NPP!

The Need

Our society has alot of serious problems. Locally, violence and murder have skyrocketed! Schools everywhere are practicing lockdowns and installing more and more sophisticated security systems while at the same time expecting that children can absorb knowledge in this kind of atmosphere. I think about whether the same amount of money spent on those systems if invested early on through support and prevention services for families would have prevented the need for them at all. I wonder if the teachers have all the tools they need to be effective in the classroom and earn a decent salary. I wonder what kind of lives these violent children had. I wonder.......

 Additionally, drug use and sexual pratices are being reported involving children at 10-11 years old and younger! Is it promiscuity or fear? What are they looking for and why don't they have it?  It is so much more difficult to fix something once it is broken than to prevent it from breaking in the first place. Kids are falling through the cracks of our societal sidewalk in too many numbers for too many reasons.

Dollars and Sense

 It is so much more cost effective to prevent things like violence and abuse from occurring by nurturing families from the beginning than to spend all these millions and billions of dollars on the back side with institutional spending. The 'system' is expensive!  Children who begin life feeling loved and nurtured from the start are less likely to head down that destructive path. We need to invest in building secure families who have been given the tools required to raise children who become thinking adults in this rapidly changing world. We need mature, rational, positive contributing members of our society. These children are our future and we need to support those who are raising them.

Wiring the System

We all come into this world with millions of brain cells just begging to be wired. Most of this 'wiring' takes place in the first few years. That is why it is so important to teach those who care for babies and toddlers to expose them to the right kind of stimuli and support that growth with good nutrition. The first five years are crucial to who that child will be as an adult. Parents are the child's first and best teacher. Do they have the skills for such an important job?

My Journey

I have spent these 55 years of my life learning mostly the hard way what works and what doesn't. As a mother of 3 and grandmother of 9, I have personally had to rebuild my life from my beginnings in an orphanage where my 'wiring' made it challenging to live the rest of my life. This 'wiring' set me on a path that led to abusive relationships, early substance abuse and over 20 years of therapy. I have learned innumerable  skills on this continuing path that have helped me learn to cope as best I can. I try to share what I've learned with those around me.

My challenges meant my children had challenges. In the throes of a very bad time in my life, I was fraught with worry about how they would turn out. I knew about cycles. The only thing I knew to do to break them was try and become the best person I could be....to heal myself and be the example for my children. Children do learn what they live. What I wanted them to learn from me was that no matter what life throws in your path, no matter how bleak the outlook from your current state, if you hang in there long enough and use every resource you can find, nothing is impossible. You have to keep trying!!

I know from the depths of my soul that what we do now to support good beginnings is a start to building a better community. It is the most worthwhile use of our time and resources..a place to strenghten our families and nurture our future. I hope you will join us!

Peace!

Teri