Failure is not me
DWD Founder and CEO reports in her personal testimony with the media that she once was on the path of fulfilling every national statistic. Below are the statistics of today’s youth, truly they are in CRISIS! Fortunately for Ms. Armstrong her Mother and her community continued take up an interest in her life, her mentors repeated this mantra to her that “Failure was not an option for her” The community of mentors refused to give up on Ms. Armstrong, therefore this village mentally has sparked a flame in Ms. Armstrong to start the pathway of “Failure Is Not Me” Program.
High risk. Fatherless children are at dramatically greater risk of suicide.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, Survey on Child Health, Washington, DC, 1993
Psychiatric Problems. In 1988, a study of preschool children admitted to New Orleans hospitals as psychiatric patients over a 34-month period found that nearly 80 percent came from fatherless homes.
Source: Jack Block, et al. "Parental Functioning and the Home Environment in Families of Divorce," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 27 (1988)
Emotional distress. Children living with a never-married mother are more likely to have been treated for emotional problems.
Source: L. Remez, "Children Who Don't Live with Both Parents Face Behavioral Problems," Family Planning Perspectives (January/February 1992).
Uncooperative kids. Children reared by a divorced or never-married mother are less cooperative and score lower on tests of intelligence than children reared in intact families. Statistical analysis of the behavior and intelligence of these children revealed "significant detrimental effects" of living in a female-headed household. Growing up in a female-headed household remained a statistical predictor of behavior problems even after adjusting for differences in family income.
Source: Greg L. Duncan, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and Pamela Kato Klebanov, "Economic Deprivation and Early Childhood Development," Child Development 65 (1994).
Unstable families, unstable lives. Compared to peers in two-parent homes, black children in single-parent households are more likely to engage in troublesome behavior, and perform poorly in school.
Source: Tom Luster and Hariette Pipes McAdoo, "Factors Related to the Achievement and Adjustment of Young African-American Children." Child Development 65 (1994): 1080-1094
Beyond class lines. Even controlling for variations across groups in parent education, race and other child and family factors, 18- to 22-year-olds from disrupted families were twice as likely to have poor relationships with their mothers and fathers, to show high levels of emotional distress or problem behavior, [and] to have received psychological help.
Source: Nicholas Zill, Donna Morrison, and Mary Jo Coiro, "Long Term Effects of Parental Divorce on Parent-Child Relationships, Adjustment and Achievement in Young Adulthood." Journal of Family Psychology 7 (1993).
Daughters without Dads have a holistic approach to well-being of pre-teen, teen and young adult women. By that we mean the wellness and healing of the whole person is important to us. The programs and services we provide address many of the issues concerning youth. We feel it is important that we use this approach because of the tendency of issues such as domestic violence, wealth management and self-esteem to become “cycles” that are repeated in life. The desired outcome for those who come through our program is that they are able to break the negative cycle(s) and be a source of positive influence to those around them.
Workshops/Seminars:
* Monthly Christian Living Group Discussions
* Healthy Relationship Building seminars
* Group Activities ( Visiting Hospitals HIV wards, Abortion Clinics and Teen Age Mother Shadowing)
* The “ I am Beautiful” workshop ( Charm school, modeling, fashion design and hair & make-up classes)
* Self-reliant seminars ( Budgeting, Saving & Retirement Planning)
* Entrepreneurship seminars
* Therapeutic writing (Using all genres of writing to express our feelings)
* Daughters Dancing (Praise Dance)
* Laughter is good program ( developing comedic material)
* Daughters Doing Dramatic Arts ( skits, plays. Puppeteer, spoken word)