LUBBOCK, Texas — Nonprofit Buckner Children and Family Services announced a 93.9% success rate for its single-parent family program, Buckner Family Pathways®. The program, which served 166 Texas families in 2022, is designed to help single parents obtain a higher education degree, better care for their children, and self-sufficiency.
Mandy Terry, the program director for Buckner Family Pathways in Lubbock, said these rates show a lot of progress and hard work from parents all over the country who are working to make a difference in their lives as well as their kids.
“It was really encouraging to see those numbers, ” Terry said. “And it’s exciting to see the families that are really pushing through putting in the hard work to graduate and improve their lives, but also set that precedence and be that role model for their kids so that their kids can see that it’s possible.”
“They can do that and really just move on to be self-sufficient and instill that in their families,” Terry said.
Katie Roberts is a mom of five kids, and when she decided to end her marriage, she had to pack up and take her kids somewhere she felt safe.
“I didn’t really have a support system after my marriage ended,” Roberts said. “After I had left an unsafe marriage and it came around at a time when we really needed it, we were living with my aunt, there were thirteen of us in her home, so we really needed a place that we could call our own.”
She stumbled upon the Buckner Family Pathways Single Parent Program, where not only would they provide her housing, security, and stability, but also the chance to earn a college degree.
Roberts earned her Bachelor’s degree at Wayland Baptist in Human Sciences and is now working on her Master’s Degree at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Buckner provides other resources for parents to utilize such as counseling support, family coaching, financial empowerment, and parenting training.
“We really focus on providing support to families in the community in an effort to keep families together,” Terry said.
Roberts says programs like these should be taken advantage of, especially with all they’ve done for single parents like her.
“I think for moms that feel stuck in a bad relationship or they feel stuck in the rat race of being a single parent, this gives us an opportunity to get away from bad situations, It gives us an opportunity to find ourselves, It gives us an opportunity to be able to be poured into because often as a single parent, you don’t get that,” Roberts said.
If you or someone you know is a single parent in need of these resources, visit the Buckner Family Pathways website here.
