By Michael Morton
But thanks to a state decision not to renew funding for the initiative, known as New Beginnings, only a few more diplomas may be added to the collection before it is taken down for good. While students like 19-year-old Aminah of Jamaica, the mother of a 1 1/2-year-old boy, may finish before the looming shutdown, she knows others will not get the second chance she received.”This here was basically the only way for me to stay in school and take care of my son,” she said during a recent interview at the site, located at 114-02 Guy R. Brewer Blvd. For others, the center's closing would mean having to search once again for a way to balance life's demands.”This is the second place that's going to close on me,” said 18-year-old Darlene of St. Albans, who has a 10-month-old girl. “If they close, where am I going to go?”Since 1982, J-CAP Programs, a non-profit agency based in Laurelton, has been working with young mothers and other female students who have left high school before earning their diplomas. Participants at New Beginnings, a free program, take academic classes in the morning and workshops on nutrition, parenting and reproductive health in the afternoon. For those students with the drive to succeed, the program offers an opportunity to keep their lives on track, staffers said.”It's a beautiful thing, but it's hard to get the doors back open,” Public Affairs Director Ronald Brinn said of motherhood at a young age and future economic and academic opportunities. “What J-CAP tries to do is eliminate all the obstacles.”Southeast Queens has one of the higher teenage pregnancy rates in the city, and students at New Beginnings said the program provided one of the few opportunities in the area for school-age mothers and other female drop-outs. Some current clients left high school because the day care centers there did not have enough staff to watch all the children. Others left overcrowded schools they considered unsafe, with several becoming pregnant later. While the city offers an alternative high school, Ida B. Wells in Jamaica, for mothers and mothers-to-be, participants in the South Jamaica program said many students would not seek out the highly structured setting.For the mothers, New Beginnings gives them a chance to go back to school but be able to check-in on their children. And for all the students, those with kids and those without, the program offers smaller class sizes so they can focus and learn more efficiently among mature classmates. The program serves anywhere from 30 to 40 students at a time, with an average stay of one year.The program received $67,000 last year from the state Office of Children and Family Services, plus other funding for a total budget of $100,000. J-CAP recently found out, however, that it will not receive the $67,000 again this year, leaving it critically short on funds.”This is the close-out scenario,” Brinn said.A spokesman with the Office of Children and Family Services said the agency was required this year to open its contracts to bidding, leaving it with 285 applicants seeking a total of $33 million. With only $3 million in the budget, the same as last year, the agency had to pick and choose, the spokesman said.But Brinn said the state should have budgeted more money and did not tell his organization what the selection criteria were. If J-CAP is unable to secure replacement funding, New Beginnings will have to shut down and will not likely be revived, he said.”Once these programs go out, it's almost impossible to re-establish them,” Brinn said.Some of the current crop of students could take the GED exam this spring, but others might soon be left without a program.”It's a big mistake,” 19-year-old Shavonnea of St. Albans, the mother of two young boys, said of the funding cut.
