Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea Bartell.
Hi Andrea, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Andrea Bartell:
Our story starts with empathy cemented in stubborn grit. I had worked with youth in various capacities starting in my mid-20s. This work inspired me to go back to school to pursue deeper knowledge and skills of how I could make a career within this field. While in college working to get my Bachelor’s in Family Studies, I was a new parent and I worked while in school along with having a partner with a high stress job themselves, the juggle was an intense struggle. Within my last year of college, I was able to intern with my good friend who was the Teen Parent Coordinator for our local school district. She had a dream of creating a parenting class unique to teen parents to come together with a meal, childcare, transportation and academic accreditation. This became my project as an intern.
Building this project and connecting with teen mothers defined my career focus. I learned first hand from my beloved friend Holly and the inspiring relationships that were cultivated with young mothers who were striving every day, against all odds, to show up to school, to make steps for themselves to create better futures for their children.
Fast forward nearly 10 years, with the partnership of Catherine Weber’s heart and skill for youth and early learning, we took action on the dream that was set forth to create a better community for young families. Youth with children experience severe multi-generational systemic disparities and community bias that entrap a majority of young families into life-time poverty. We invited other like minded people to join our adventure of creating this organization now called Young Roots Oregon – so no young parent or child would be stuck in a suffering state, that they could have equitable opportunities for their basic needs to be stable so that they would be able to have the mental and emotional capacity to grow.
When we think of equity in reflection of youth with children compared to their peers, childcare is the most relevant need, to remove an adolescent’s in-time, hands on parenting responsibilities so that they are able to connect to peers, to mentoring and resources, and learning. Parenting stress is exceptionally high for adolescents as they have limited coping and parenting skills due to their own stage of brain development and life experience, slim social support networks, isolation, no economic stabilization due to inadequate system infrastructure available to support educational success and workforce advancement.
Our volunteer efforts started back where it all began, in partnership with our school district’s Teen Parent Coordinator, where we helped to support classes for student parents. The Young Roots team would provide in-person support, sitting and learning about community resources and skills with teen parents, and helping to care for their children during class. As we kept showing up, building trust and friendship with young mothers, they allowed us to support their families outside of the school setting to provide holistic mentoring support that simply gave them a safe, consistent and caring adult in their lives. We would have monthly family social events with shared activities, food, childcare, and transportation.
Now, Young Roots Oregon is in its sixth year as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, still holding to the same foundations with greater reach. We have robust mentoring and childcare programming, supporting over 150 adolescent parents and their children in 2025. We have rich community partnerships, deep relationships with young families, and robust creativity that empowers youth and children to grow strong, to establish long term stability, and to be loved.
Catherine Weber:
I met Andrea in the spring of 2013 and worked together in supporting middle school youth for 5 years.
Andrea had a heart for young people especially teen parents. My heart was also for young people, especially the littles.
We started a movement combining our passions in supporting youth and their children by volunteering with the local school district, holding monthly outreach events with childcare, and mentoring support to young dads as well as mothers and birthing parents.
In March 2020 we got our official 501(c)3 status letter. We then received funding to transition from volunteering with Young Roots Oregon to working exclusively for Young Roots Oregon. We then were able to offer two evening classes a week which included dinner, transportation and childcare (we were able to hire staff to provide childcare). That next year Jonathan Eick joined us as the Fathering Mentor Director and soon after we were able to bring on Blanca Sanchez as our Mothering Mentor Director who expanded our reach to Spanish speaking families.
Churches and libraries provided space to host our classes and events in for the first few years, and then we were able to create our own Family Hub the summer of 2023. We had our own home base now, no hauling bins of supplies around, setting up and tearing down each class.
Amongst Andrea’s many gifts and talents, she is a collaborator and places great value in building great community partner relationships to collaborate with. One of which was with KidCo Head Start, where they opened an Early Head Start classroom in at the YRO Family Hub. Our KidRoots Children’s Program provides license-exempt child care in the evenings to support parenting classes and events. Young Roots Oregon and our KidRoots Children’s Program has had the privilege of creating a safe space for both children and youth; making a multi-generational impact.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Andrea Bartell:
Young Roots Oregon only exists because of the dynamic grit, resilience, and determination of our leadership. The struggle has been raw, with draining sacrifice to plow this dream forward. We have huge gratitude to our families who persevered through with us and for those who jumped on board inspiring us forward.
Our greatest struggle is with system leaders who protect the systems that cause harm to youth and children through inequitable practices, personal bias, who abuse their power causing additional layers of trauma. Young Roots Oregon is an advocacy organization who calls out injustice, believes the victim, and protects the powerless. We come to the table and demand for systems to improve, for families to have equitable care, and demand that youth-led families be remembered within decision making.
Catherine Weber:
There have been many a bump along the way but our passion, creativity and resilience kept us moving forward.
Some of the bumps:
*Funding consistency
*fear, competition, and unwillingness to collaborate from other agencies
*lack of understanding and care for peoples we serve
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Young Roots Oregon?
Our Mission: The mission of Young Roots Oregon is to creatively empower young families to build healthy foundations.
Our Vision: Our multi-generational vision is to give pregnant and parenting adolescents through age 24 and their children equitable opportunities for growth through a collaborative approach of resource partnership and innovative services.
Our Core Values: Our values work in a rhythmic fashion, each incapable of being fulfilled without the other.
Belonging: To value BELONGING is to create a relational environment that fosters authentic connection and trust through acceptance and inclusion.
Accessibility: ACCESSIBILITY is described as a quality of being, quality of being easy to access, quality of being obtainable, quality of being suitable or adapted for use by people who need assistance. We advocate for social adaptation and create pathways of accessibility as we wait for systems to catch up.
Equity: EQUITY is the concept of preventative activism, advocating and allocating resources and services according to the unique needs of young families, to reduce barriers for young families so they are able to effectively participate in opportunities for life-long stability and health.
Growth: GROWTH can only happen when our basic needs are met. Basic needs of access to food, water, warmth, rest, and shelter. The basic need of being safe, being loved and having a sense of belonging. When those basic needs are met, then we can grow
Catherine Weber:
We do this really well: building community, (we are people affirming, human centered and all welcomed, ) collaboration both internally and externally (we don’t need to recreate the wheel, rather we lean into sharing our resources and others expertise to serve all), and creativity ( finding a way to make it happen).
Andrea Bartell:
I am most proud of our relationships and advocacy. Youth and their children experience a caring community that is safe, inclusive, intercultural, bilingual, and intentional. These are the voices of some of our parents, they are who I am most proud of. Here is some of the feedback we received from young parents:
– When I first started young roots I was in an incredibly rough spot through my parent mentor and the support of my peers and the staff. I have gotten into a much better place mentally and they have helped me with getting a vehicle and even went above and beyond to advocate for me to get housing. Through them I have found stability, something I didn’t think was possible as a single mom.
– Young roots has improved my life in so many positive ways. I have connected and made new friendships with other moms. My kids love all the staff and have also made friends themselves. I feel heard, loved and appreciated.
– YRO has helped by advocating for me and has helped me learn how to advocate for myself. YRO gave me a safe place to be a person, a parent, and to become a person that I never thought possible. I will always say that “YRO is the most valuable tool in my belt.”
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Catherine Weber:
Have you heard of that 400 year old proverb: “where there is a will there is a way”? It’s not about luck so much but rather determination, grit, passion and will. Equally important is the people who make up the organization. We support, encourage, and care for each other quite beautifully and we have created a safe space where we can all learn and grow together.
Andrea Bartell:
The luck of courage, resilience, grit and empathy. I am lucky to have those qualities and skills, along with strong partners joining hands within this work. I feel lucky every time a decision maker chooses to invest in Young Roots Oregon to create better for young families together. The luck is in the gratitude and the determination.
Pricing:
- Services are at no-cost.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://youngrootsoregon.org
- Instagram: @youngrootsoregon
- Facebook: @youngrootsoregon
- Youtube: @youngrootsoregon
