There are many single mothers age 18-24 in the Columbus area. Luckily for these young women, Chloe can help. Chloe, or Community Health and 
Life skills Opportunities and Education, was started in 2000 by Connie Nafziger, a registered nurse in the Columbus area.
Chloe, Inc. is a non-profit organization in Columbus that aims to help these young single mothers become self-sufficient. The mission of Chloe, Inc. is to “empower young single moms to become self-sufficient, resilient and adaptable; preventing and breaking cycles of poverty through education and be a safe haven in our community,” as stated on their website, www.chloeinc.org.
“I was a community health nurse for the city of Columbus and I would go into homes of infants who were at risk for abuse and neglect,” said Nafziger. “That’s how I got the idea for this.”
Nafziger also said that the ultimate goal for Chloe, Inc. is to become a residential facility for these young moms for up to two years.
“There is so much need in the immediate community,” Nafziger said.
“[Chloe helps make sure that young mothers] can continue their education if they want it, that they have the right skills to be good mothers, that they have job skills if they need to improve job skills,” Dr. Andrea Karkowski, Professor of Psychology, who is working with Chloe, Inc. at Capital said.
“Sometimes its basic things, like maybe [these mothers] need their driver’s license, so helping them through the process of getting that, or maybe they don’t have their social security number yet, so going through the process of getting that.
It’s really just helping them become the people who they can be so that they can be good mothers to their children,” Karkowski said.
That’s where Capital comes in. This past fall, Chloe, Inc. was looking to redefine its mission and goals for the next few years, so did a needs assessment to see what the young single mothers in this area most need. Dr. Karkowski recruited six students from the psychology department to help with this assessment survey. Those six students are Justin Damron, Caitlin Harville, Leanne Howard, Taylor Niemira, Jazmin Soto, and Caitlin Bierman.
“I thought this would be a good experiment because I’m passionate about this,” Bierman, senior, said. “I hope to work with low income people after I get my MSW in family counseling.”
The survey was created based on the Chloe, Inc. literature and was approved by the Capital University Institutional Review Board, and the group was awarded a grant by the Boyd Fund for Undergraduate Scholarship to recruit some young mothers to take the survey. Recruiting cards were printed out and given to nurses to pass out to young mothers.
“We just started collecting data this [past] week because we just got approval for it, and we have about 25 responses so far,” Karkowsk said. “We’re looking for as many responses as possible.
Single mothers are so diverse. There’s the young single mothers age 18-24, but we also want to see if women who were single mothers maybe 10 or 15 years ago had the same experiences, because then we would know if the research from that time applies today.
If their experiences were different, then we know we can’t use the research from 10 years ago to apply to people today.”
There are plenty of opportunities for other students to get involved. There is a need for students from the art department to help create the advertising materials, students in computer science will be needed to help create a database, and there will be weekly meetings Friday mornings at 10 in Battelle 218.
“We want to include college students in this because we can help them reach our goals while we reach our goals,” said Nafziger. “It’s a perfect fit.”
Additionally, all six students involved with the Chloe survey have posted links to the survey on their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.
“If you know any single moms in Columbus, forward the link out to them,” Bierman saod.
Another way for students to get involved is through a baby shower that will be hosted on campus by Dr. Karkowski and Cynthia Duncan Joseph, the Director of Multicultural Affairs. All donations collected will go to help supplying Chloe’s Closet, which has baby clothes and supplies for members of the Chloe community.
“I think that this is broader than Chloe, Inc.,” Karkowski said. “I think it’s important for students to find out what excites them, so try many different things. If working with single mothers is what excites you, that’s great, but maybe it’s something different that you can do in the community that excites you. Once you find that, then everything kind of falls into place.”
