Futures for Young Parents is a free GED program for pregnant or parenting young people between the ages of 15 and 21 who are receiving Transitional Assistance for Families with Dependent Children.  We are a part of the Just A Start Corporation, one of its 15 programs helping meet community needs in the Boston area.  To read more about Just A Start Corp, its mission statement and descriptions of programs, click here.

Imagine a slightly more diverse and energetic one-room school house, and you have a pretty good idea of our program.  The classroom is structured to accomodate the needs of young parents seeking their general equivalency degree. This means we have students of all levels learning in our classroom at their own pace.  The two teachers determine individual educational plans for each student on his or her enrollment.  Learning at Futures is not restricted to the five subject areas covered by the GED however.  We also teach our students computer skills, job search and application skills, parenting skills, and other life skills.  The academic classroom is Monday through Thursday from 9:00 am to 1:15.  Counseling and job developing sessions are in the afternoons from 1:30-2:30.  The classroom environment is structured such that the needs of all students, whatever the learning style or pace, are met.

Our students are ethnically diverse, and come from places as far apart as Lawrence, Somerville, Revere, Dorchester, Waltham, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Somalia, and Portugal.  Each student comes to our program for different reasons and with different goals, but they all recognize the importance of the first step: getting their GED.  Because the GED is also available in Spanish, the Futures classroom is designed to accomodate Spanish speakers.  This contributes to the diversity and complexity of our class.  We have a global classroom, where cultures combine and diverge, and somewhere in the midst of all that, much learning takes place.

The Futures for Young Parents Program started in 1987 to meet the need in the community for a GED program designed specifically to work with teenage parents.  For the first two years Futures operated out of Just A Start Corporation’s main office in Cambridge.  In 1989 we moved to a space in the basement of the Just A Start House in Somerville.  Within a few years the number of students in the school had grown such that Futures needed more space than the basement of the shelter could provide.  The search for a new building began, and ended only 20 yards from where it had started.   Futures moved into a small yellow building in back of the shelter, which had once served as the library and kindergarten of the St. Polycarp Church School.  This building is Futures’ current home, and offers a large classroom for general teaching, a small classroom in back for computer classes and training, and 3 offices for staff.

The Futures for Young Parents Program has more than doubled in size since its inception.  Starting with a class of only 15 students and 1 teacher, Futures now has over 30 students on roll, two teachers, a counselor, a director, and an office support person.  Funded originally by the Department of Labor as a vocational exploration and GED program, Futures now receives 85% of its money from the Department of Transitional Assistance, and 15% from private donations solicited by the Just A Start Corporation.

Over the 13 years since Futures was created, we have seen hundreds of students receive their GED’s, get jobs, enter training programs or college, and make tremendous headway to getting off of transitional assistance.