The Self Help Meld Program is a family nurturing program that has been making positive differences for 8 years in the live of Brockton area families with children--nurturing the crucial connections between parents and children by building parenting skills, knowledge, support systems, and confidence. Through participation in our Meld Program, parents get what they need to raise nurtured, competent children.

Being a single or pregnant young mom can be a joyful and rewarding but sometimes frightening experience. Many young moms find themselves isolated from friends, families and the community. Meld can help reestablish family ties as well as provide an opportunity to share your joys and concerns with other young moms like themselves.

Meld Groups meet once a week for three hours, usually in the evening, and are led by women who were once young single moms themselves. Childcare, transportation and an evening meal are provided.

At a Meld Group you can expect:

• Facilitated peer groups
• Building on parents' strengths
• builds confidence and competence
• considers parents' experience, ideas, and knowledge a primary source of information (along with curriculum)

• Developmental perspective on child, parent, and group
• Child: emphasis on developmental stage in interpreting and handling behavior, curriculum anticipates development
• Parent: developmental stages of parents acknowledged and explored, helps interpret parents' responses and needs
• Group: group process shaped by awareness of group stages over time

• Emphasis on problem solving and decision making
• these are the underlying themes of curriculum
• how to get information, how to get support, how to cope
• how to generate alternatives for handling child rearing"situations" as well as the strains of parenthood

What is Meld????

MELD is a community-based parent education program that uses group-based service to deliver quality parent education and to replace the sense of community connectiveness that is missing in families' lives. Parent facilitators are drawn from the local community and act as both facilitator and "mentor," demonstrating that high standards of family success can be achieved within their culture and community. These facilitators are carefully recruited and trained, and are provided ongoing support and supervision from the local MELD Site Coordinator who MELD certifies to manage MELD programs.

MELD targets parents of preschool children and has been adapted to meet the needs of young, single mothers of many cultures including Hispanic, Cape Verdean and Haitian as well as Caucasian and African American parents, first-time adult parents and young pregnant women. MELD's curriculum and learning processes are usable by parents who are not highly literate, and addresses everyday concerns of low-income parents.

MELD's peer discussion groups meet for up to three years, once a week, 40 weeks per year. Using a carefully developed curriculum, the groups are facilitated by volunteers who are carefully recruited and trained, and are provided ongoing support and supervision from a local MELD professional, who is certified in managing MELD programs. The comprehensive curriculum discusses health, child development, child guidance, family management, use of community resources, home and community safety, balancing work and family, and other issues related to the parenting needs of the target group.

Who is Eligible???

Young women between the ages of 13 and 23 years old who are pregnant or parenting a child ages 0 to 3 years and who reside in the Brockton area* are eligible for this free program.

*If you have your own transportation and do not live in Brockton, you could still be eligible to attend a Meld Group.

Want to know more???

Call the Self Help Meld Program at 508-559-8704 and ask for extension 118 to talk to Bernadette Werra, Meld Program Manager.

The Meld Program is in partnership with Health Care of Southeastern Mass Healthy Families Program.

Health Care of SE Mass.

Helping First-Time Parents
Healthy Families Massachusetts provides a trained home visitor who offers information and support on a voluntary basis to all first-time parents age 20 and under. The statewide program is funded and administered by CTF.

Benefits
Research shows the benefits of home visiting:

• A lower rate of child abuse
• Better-educated and better-paid parents
• Healthier children
• Fewer subsequent pregnancies among teen moms