Where Young Mothers Thrive
The Young Mom Summit is an annual event providing young mothers with access to community resources and giving them space to learn from other young mothers who have walked in their shoes.
The first summit was held on the Kent State University campus, March 29, 2014.
The Summit is the brainchild of Tara Pringle Jefferson, the founder of the Northeast Ohio-based website, TheYoungMommyLife.com. Jefferson is a former student-parent who was frustrated at the lack of information about resources and support for parenting students. This exclusion has a cost: research shows that low-income student-mothers are three times more likely to drop out of college compared to their counterparts without children.
Building off research from her Master’s thesis, Jefferson created the Young Mom Summit to fill in the gaps for young mothers looking to improve their lives.
“Too often, young parents struggle to find the support they seek, even when it’s available in the community and in their own families,” Jefferson said. “My goal is to help young parents connect those dots, and have a little fun while doing it.”
The Summit is a multi-partner collaboration among community organizations that serve this population. Focus areas for the conference include mental health, financial literacy, and career guidance. The first event, based in Northeast Ohio at Kent State University, drew participants from three states. The Summit has garnered in-kind support from Fortune 500 companies and area institutions including Cedar Point, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
Young Mom Summit 