Every Person Influences Children is a national non-profit organization whose mission is to provide resources for parents, guardians, educators and all other people who influence children.

These resources include free workshop series designed to help parents learn the skills they need to raise children to become responsible, caring adults.

EPIC's Just for Teens program provides Cayuga County's teen parents with 24 free workshops, aimed at helping pregnant and parenting teens gain the emotional and analytical skills they need to be responsible, caring parents, who raise responsible, caring children.

This service is possible thanks to funds received from the Auburn City Block Grant. Other local foundation funding is pending.

The most difficult part of holding these workshops is recruiting teen parents. To keep the parents engaged in the curriculum and willing to attend, EPIC provide a light dinner during the workshop, items for the infants and for the parents such as books, baby clothes, diapers, movie tickets, gift cards, etc.

Emergency items such as car seats, diapers and formula are often purchased as requested.

The curriculum includes tips for dealing with stress, issues regarding health and safety and guides for recognizing and building loving and respectful relationships.

Help with essential basic life skills are also provided, such as balancing a checkbook and resolving conflicts.

Guest speakers are invited to present important topics that include but are not limited to, identifying abuse of child or self, as well as anger management.

These skills are especially helpful to young people who must begin operating as a responsible parent.

Also, while EPIC's series serves young women and men who already have had children, the program has an important preventative component in that it encourages teen parents to practice responsible and respectful sexual behavior and to finish their education.

It also teaches them parenting skills that promote their children's emotional and educational development, helping to prevent these children from repeating patterns of teen pregnancy and poverty.

Currently, this program is unique to Cayuga County and exists specifically to help teen parents overcome both the emotional and economic stressors that can lead to poverty.

To help relieve their financial burden, EPIC will provide Just for Teens participants with transportation to and from the workshops.

To learn more about the series, call EPIC at 253-8583 .