Mothers welcome group's expertise

Welcome Baby participants serve more than half of local births

If you've had a baby in Durham during the past 20 years, odds are that someone from Welcome Baby did just that -- welcomed your baby into the community by visiting you in the hospital.

A volunteer probably came to your room and handed you a packet explaining the group's many free resources: parenting classes, clothing, discounted car seats and a lending library to name a few.

On Sunday, Welcome Baby is celebrating its 20th anniversary from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the pavilion in Central Park downtown. Since Welcome Baby visits more than half of the births in Durham's hospitals -- averaging about 2,600 visits to the 4,000 to 5,000 births each year -- the festivities are sure to be packed.

A nurse on the maternity units of Durham hospitals makes a list of new births each week, and a Welcome Baby volunteer tries to visit as many families as she can.

Tenekia Parker read the material she received after the birth of her second child and decided to take Welcome Baby's Positive Discipline class to help with the transition of adding another child to her home.

"I find that sometimes it gets a little challenging being a stay-at-home mom," she said. "I don't want to yell."

Parker just finished her first class at the Welcome Baby Family Resource Center located at 721 Foster St. downtown. The group discussed the core pieces to the positive discipline puzzle: being firm and kind at the same time, showing mutual respect between parent and child, and having family meetings.

"I felt it was great," Parker said. Her energy level, as well as her optimism, increased during the 90-minute class as she gained confidence in her parenting skills.

Confidence is one of the key goals of these workshops. Parents are not born knowing the best way to discipline their children, and approaches have shifted in recent generations. Some parents come out of curiosity, others from pure frustration. Others venture out for the companionship. But they all leave the programs having learned something new.

Carolyn Titus, now deputy county manager, started the program 20 years ago as a young county employee working in the mental health and substance abuse department. She based it on a similar effort in South Carolina aimed at preventing child abuse. The Junior League of Durham and Orange Counties raised nearly $50,000 by selling a cookbook, she said, and with that the program was born.

Titus, who got to experience the program's impact firsthand years later when she had her third and fourth children, is amazed it has survived so long, especially since prevention programs tend to be the first ones cut when the budget gets tight. The program's longevity attests to its need, she said.

"Every mom has the same need when they have a new baby," Titus said. "It crosses all socioeconomic lines."

The program is now under the Durham County Cooperative Extension, and its $390,000 operating budget is mainly supported by funds from Durham's Partnership for Children, a Smart Start initiative, said Pat Harris, director. The rest comes from the county.

"We follow these families for five years," Harris said.

Welcome Baby makes it easy for everyone to take advantage of their resources. It offers transportation to and from classes, as well as child care. Mothers feel comfortable breast-feeding during these sessions, and teething infants are not considered an annoyance.

The agency also offers every class in Spanish and has seen a large number of Latino parents in its programs.

One such class began at the start of the month, B.A.B.Y. - teaching parents how to take care of themselves during pregnancy and how to care for the baby during their first few months. Evelyn Rojas led a recent class through a workshop on bedtime routines. They read Spanish-language copies of "Goodnight Moon," or "Buenas Noches Luna," and then the mothers made their own copies of the book to fit the items in their children's bedrooms.

Holly Lindsay-Miller has taken two Positive Discipline classes, the second time with her husband. She took the class to feel less isolated, and now loves the e-mailed newsletters. She made an incredible friendship with a fellow mom, and felt her parenting techniques affirmed by the programs -- classes that many parents pay good money for in other towns, she added.

"It's a jewel, it really is," she said.