Ascend National Advisors are Taking Action to Combat COVID-19 and Support Student Parents

Although the COVID-19 pandemic threw off the day-to-day lives of people across the country, that did not stop nonprofits, health and human services, workforce programs, higher education professionals and more from creating rapid response services to support student parents.

The Ascend National Advisors, a cohort of 23 leaders providing supports for student parents and inform the Aspen Postsecondary Success for Parents (PSP) Initiative, were among the many service providers tasked with creating or retooling their two-generation programs to remain accessible to student parents and their children simultaneously.

Several National Advisors shared how the pandemic not only impacted their organizations, but also how the nationwide anti-racism uprisings following the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and countless other Black and brown people at the hands of police pushed them to double down on mental health resources.

Follow the links below to learn how Program Directors, nonprofit CEOs, and others continued to advance postsecondary success for parents despite the pandemic.

• #ThisIsFamilyScholarHouse by Cathe Dykstra, Family Scholar House
• Pivoting at PelotonU: How One Higher Ed Nonprofit’s Response to COVID has Facilitated Student Success
  by Sarah Saxton-Frump, PelotonU
• We Can and Must Do More by Chastity Lord, Jeremiah Program
• Using Technology and Design Thinking to Meet Every Learner Wherever They Are by Jacqueline Smith, ASU Foundation
• Making Student Parents the Norm Requires Facing Systemic Racism by Nicole Lynn Lewis, Generation Hope
• Weathering the Storm with Student Parents: Confronting Racism and COVID-19 in Minnesota by Susan Warfield, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities’ Student Parent HELP Center
• Keeping Families Safe in Times of Crisis: LIFT’s Response to COVID-19 by Michelle Rhone-Collins, LIFT

Photo of Generation Hope Scholar and daughter on the playground. Generation Hope is a nonprofit based in Washington, DC, providing wraparound, two-generation support to young parents in college and their pre-kindergarten little ones, and promoting student parents’ college completion through national advocacy and direct technical assistance to colleges and universities.