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Youth Mentoring Services steps up for working parents

Lockport Union-Sun & Journal - 5/28/2021

May 28—When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in New York in March 2020, schools closed their doors, leaving parents, including essential workers, to decide between staying home with their children or going to work to take care of others.

In response, Youth Mentoring Services of Niagara County stepped up to help parents. It rolled out a child care program called Step Up.

"The notice went out mainly through unions and went down to firefighters and police officers and the nurses, those kind of people," Sue Capell, CEO of YMS, said. "As things started to open up a little and people started going back to work, we started to take in other kids."

Initially the program was free; money was there to fund the program through the summer of 2020, and at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year YMS was awarded a grant that helped absorb some, though not all, of the cost. The space for Step Up was supplied by Cornerstone CFCU Arena.

"We had to start charging, but we charge a minimal amount, because we want parents to afford it," Capell said. "In some case we award scholarships based on income."

The program is open from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. and it offers free breakfast and lunch for the children through Lockport City School District. Two snacks are also offered through the school and FeedMore Western New York.

Step Up provides oversight to the children of working parents, but it's not a babysitting service. Capell stressed that YMS has developed programming for the children.

"One of the programs is called HIGH-5. It's social and emotional learning for kids aged 6 to 11," she said. "The HIGH-5 is: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social-Awareness, Responsible Decision Making and Relationship-Building."

A similar program for older children, "Game of Life," teaches social-emotional learning through games.

"We might be playing 'Let's Make A Deal' and then we're talking to the kids about disappointments in their life and how did they handle that," Capell said. "We're using the games to show real life skills."

The final component for the children is a combination of socio-emotional learning and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math skills (STEM) through understanding food systems.

"We're getting kids to connect themselves to the world around them and their environment," Capell said. "Over the summer we're going to do a Summer Olympics theme called 'Go for the Gold'. We got the money from the Ralph Wilson Foundation for that."

Step Up has received support from the United Way, East Hill Foundation, and individual donors. Tuition is $10 per day and more than 150 youths from all over the region are registered.

"Right now we're down to one day a week, Wednesdays, because all the kids are back at school except Wednesdays," Capell noted.

Step Up programming keeps in mind that the pandemic has been hard on everyone, including children.

"Kids have to know, in this world, where things are such out of control and so many things have been forced onto them, they have to know which things they have control of," Capell said. "Even when it comes to the food, they have choices. We give them as many choices as we can. ... They wanted to do more yoga, so we developed one called Mind-Body Connection. Then they wanted to know about careers so we did Food for Thought. We've developed units based on what kids say they want to learn about. ... They kind of guide where we're going next."

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