Teen Moms Treated to Lunch, Fashion Show

More than 150 teenage mothers from the San Fernando Valley will be guests of honor at the fourth annual “Self-Esteem and You” luncheon and fashion show today at the First United Methodist Church in San Fernando.

Friends of the Family, a Van Nuys-based nonprofit counseling and family education center, is sponsoring the event for participants in its Young Moms program.

The program offers training and instruction to mothers between the ages of 13 and 21 in an effort to improve the quality of their lives and the lives of their babies, said Regina Law, program coordinator for Young Moms.

“Our goals are to prevent child neglect and to promote education and self-esteem so that these girls won’t have second pregnancies before they are ready,” said Law.

The teenage moms meet weekly in groups of 25 to talk and to learn everything from “how to change a diaper, to how to look for a job,” Law said.

Participants are encouraged to join the program in their final trimester of pregnancy and continue until their children are 2 years old.

The models in the fashion show and the guests are all participants in the Young Moms program. When a local department store backed out of plans to donate clothes for the fashion show, volunteers and administrators at Friends of the Family donated items from their personal wardrobes.

“We do this on a shoestring, but it’s very important to the girls and they really get into the spirit of it,” said Law.

Law empathizes with the girls in her program because she became pregnant with her first child when she was only 15.

“They are just kids,” she said. “We want to help them build their self-esteem and get the information they need to make better decisions.”

For more information about Friends of the Family, call (818) 988-4430.