Rachel Truant is the Director, Resource Development at Massey Centre. In her three years of working at the Centre, she has worked with countless volunteers and donors to improve the lives of vulnerable young moms and children. She is passionate about empowering women to follow their dreams and use their voices for change. 
 
The Massey Centre is a centre for pregnant or adolescent mothers aged 17 to 19. They help mothers who also deal with homelessness, low income, poverty, racial minorities etc. 
 
Rachel spoke about some of the programs of the Massey Centre, including: 
 
1.  Prenatal program - for mothers (aged 13-21) needing a lot of support. The program offers social workers, life skills, psychotherapy, 24/7support, among others. This is to help stabilize their lives and get them ready to be a mom and back in school. They can come anytime they are pregnant and stay until baby is 6months. 
 
2.  Postnatal program - a lot more independent program where mothers are taught skills to reach the next stage of life. The program helps them with establishing routines - rent paying, cooking, job training, life skills programming. The post natal program has shifted to support while in school which enables them to finish their schooling while managing their child. 
 
3.  Secondary School Treatment Program - through a partnership with TDSB, this program is individualized, enabling attendance of classes and treatment. This offers a lot more flexibility than actual secondary school as mothers can bring their babies to class. This program was affected by COVID-19. 
 
We thank Rachel for her passionate and engaging talk to our club - we certainly learned a lot today! Our club is both inspired and proud to have supported the Centre this year through a donation to help support their wireless services for their programming. 
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