HUNTINGTON BEACH : Project LEARN Aids ‘At-Risk’ Families

Withdrawn and depressed, Antonio was doing poorly in school and not attending class regularly. His teacher and a local health care specialist were concerned, so the nurse referred the 8-year-old Oak View Elementary School student to Project LEARN.

A counselor visited Antonio’s home and found that his parents were having trouble making ends meet even though the father worked two jobs. The boy’s 14-year-old sister didn’t go to school because she was needed to stay home and help her mother care for four younger brothers and sisters, including a baby who was frequently ill.

The LEARN counselor spent six months with the family getting them affordable and free medical assistance, teaching them about the importance of education, nutrition and basic hygiene.

Soon the Oak View third-grader began attending the LEARN after-school homework club, where volunteers and peers help each other with schoolwork. Antonio’s grades improved and his self-esteem took a boost. Child care was found and his mother joined a parent-support group.

He’s one of the success stories for Project LEARN, short for Local Efforts to Address and Reduce Neglect. A counseling program for “at-risk” youths and their families, Project LEARN was started two years ago at Oak View and Westmont elementary schools by the Orange County chapter of Children’s Bureau of Southern California.

“We intervene to try to prevent neglect or abuse before it happens,” said Sandy Sladen, the Orange County director of community services for the bureau, a nonprofit organization that promotes care and protection of abused and abandoned children.

The program was started at the two schools because 73% of the students live in overcrowded apartments in poorer Huntington Beach neighborhoods infested with gangs and drugs. About 63% of the students were identified as being “at-risk” for child abuse or neglect due to their living conditions, their economically impoverished parents, social isolation and their families’ poor parenting skills and inability to access the public service system, Sladen said.

“We help the families because parents need to provide the environment for children to thrive in school,” said Dorothy Nieto Manzar, the program’s coordinator. “We’re trying to reach them before things get too bad.”

About 60 families are helped with intensive counseling through the program each year. Hundreds of children also get help through its homework club.

Oak View’s teachers and administrators said they’ve seen remarkable transformations in students who have been helped by Project LEARN.

“I see the kids are really connecting to school,” Principal Julie Stein said. “We’ve seen a significant drop in child abuse, and the children feel that they are indeed special. The Project LEARN people are very much appreciated here.”

Teachers, school nurses and other employees refer the youths for Project LEARN’s assistance. The program is funded by state grants, the Orange County Department of Social Services, the Ocean View School District and the Children’s Bureau.