- The struggle of poverty is really significant when you think about a low-income single mom.

- We know that living in poverty impacts the brain.

- Being a parent is probably the hardest thing that anyone does, and doing that with limited resources and limited connections is even more difficult and isolating.

- How am I gonna pay the bills?

How am I gonna feed my family?

And when you have to just struggle to keep your lights on, that creates a whole other level of problems, anxiety, depression.

- As you continue to swallow that on day to day to day, then eventually a crisis erupts, and then that mental health issue is front and center, and it has to be recognized and dealt with.

- That's when my depression just really started.

I was using drugs.

I guess I just didn't feel like I could ask for help at the time.

And you just feel like you're the only one with that problem.

- I think Wyoming definitely has the mentality of like, neighbor helps neighbor, but especially with mental health and stuff like that, there isn't a lot of resources and support systems.

- If we're not thinking about supporting those single moms, then we're really not thinking about the long-term implications of poverty on children and families.

(soft music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided by the Hughes Charitable Foundation.

Energized by love and faith, and inspired by the vibrant community around us, Hughes Charitable Foundation supports organizations in helping those across Wyoming who need it most.

A private donation from Jack and Carole Nunn, providing statewide support for Wyoming citizens in body, mind, and spirit.

The John P. Ellbogen Foundation, empowering the people of Wyoming to lead healthy lives in thriving communities.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, proudly providing funding for education to raise awareness of the mental health crisis in Wyoming, and connect people to available care that promotes positive mental health and hopefully saves lives.

(birds chirping) (plaintive music) (door hinge squeaks) (light switch clicks) - I grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

My mom and dad separated when I was two.

There was a lot of back-and-forth.

I bounced around schools.

My mom was pretty strict.

It was like I felt the need to rebel, everybody-wants-to-be-around-Megan type rebel and not care what my mom thought.

There's some choices I wish I could take back.

After I graduated from school, that's kind of where my substance abuse started.

I did it because I was in such a toxic relationship.

I thought that we could connect with drugs.

I got pregnant with my oldest daughter, and then I had my son.

By 2018, I had my daughter.

I was admitted to the hospital.

I was in premature labor with her.

That's when they tested us both, and we both came back positive for drugs.

That's where it all just went spiraling down.

My mom then took custody of my daughter and then took custody of my other two children and just pushed me out of their lives, her life.

It was just like my worst nightmare.

It was like I had nothing to live for.

- Addiction said another way is simply ritualistic coping.

What happens to many of these folks that I see, most of them at early young ages, it's not even their idea.

Somebody introduces a substance to them and says, "Hey, I have pain too, and this is what I've done that's helped me with my pain," a boyfriend, a parent, an uncle, you name it.

And sure, there's a certain level of choice to it, but once that's introduced, now there's sort of logic in your brain that instinctually like, "I need to go this way again.

Even if it dulled my pain for a little bit, it worked."

- Substance abuse is just coping.

When a parent goes into crisis in the home, then there's an effect on everyone in the home.

The majority of what we do, the majority of calls we receive and the majority of times that we say there really is something going on is because of neglect.

- Mental illness, it actually touches every aspect of the law and family law, in particular.

So when we see the cases that have to do with abuse and neglect or parental rights termination frequently, the majority of the time, mental health and substance abuse are part of that picture.

There are times that children need to be taken from their parents, but it probably is gonna be the most traumatic thing that ever happens to them.

- I see a pretty wide range of trauma.

Some people from almost the time they're born are dealing with circumstances that are extraordinary and impossible to navigate.

I have clients who have been raped.

I have clients who've been molested.

I have clients who have been trafficked.

I have clients who've experienced a significant amount of death of loved ones, of people they care about, the trauma that happens as a result of being poor.

- We all have some level of trauma in our childhood, and that level of trauma can impact us throughout the rest of our lives.

It's the spillover effect into all parts of the family, and then it starts to cascade.

I think we have an expectation of single moms that they perform at as high a function as anyone with a ton of support without recognizing that everything that that single mom is doing is probably a little bit more difficult to do.

- Didn't know what to do.

I had no place to go.

I was homeless.

I was bouncing from couch to couch trying to find jobs.

I couldn't keep a job.

And that's when my depression just really started.

It was like the skies were gray.

Why should I even roll out of bed?

What is the point of going on with my day or with any of it?

And I ended up pregnant again with my youngest.

I was just in a black hole.

It's downward-spiraling.

I decided no more.

Like, I'm pregnant, for one, and for two, like, it just has to stop, that I get that second chance to be a mom and to do it right.

I needed a reason to keep going, and she was my reason, completely.

It just has to stop.

- The women in our community who most often need help are single.

They're living in a low-income situation and oftentimes parenting on their own.

Sometimes they struggle with substance use.

Sometimes they've maybe had some legal history in their rear-view mirror that they're working on.

I think there are not a lot of resources in Wyoming to support those kind of things.

- You can't afford to find homes.

You can't afford food.

That really limits what you can do mentally.

How do you feel like you're gonna be beneficial in society when you can barely stay alive?

- Being a single mother was, at the time, it was just, it was hard getting by trying to get money for motel room just to be at a stable or safe spot for the night, getting by with food, stuff like that.

I guess I just didn't feel like it was necessary for me to ask for help at the time.

- The Mountain West contributes to a sense of independence in a lot of positive ways but also a sense of independence in, "I have to figure this out on my own.

This is a problem that only I am experiencing.

No one will understand."

- This is a frontier state.

We have resilience and self-sufficiency and toughness.

That image we have of ourselves is sometimes counterproductive because if we think we have to be too tough, we may not acknowledge when we need help.

- In Wyoming, reaching out for help and asking for help feels really hard.

I do think that far more women reach out for support than men do.

However, I also think that independent thinking extends to women.

- I think it's really lonely to be a single parent.

Wyoming is very rural.

Along with being hard to access resources, I think that a lot of moms are isolated.

If there's a low-income single mom, there's complex issues I think that come with being somebody in poverty, and mental health on top of that I think is just a lot to handle.

- There's a big correlation between financial struggles and mental health in the state of Wyoming.

Housing insecurity, food insecurity on top of where we live, it's just making the problem much harder.

(plaintive music) (plaintive music continues) (automobile humming) - I moved here from Cheyenne not knowing anybody, and that's the way I wanted it, not to completely seclude myself from the community or anything.

It was just something that needed to be done to start a new life.

(soft expectant music) So when I first heard about Climb, I was in a meeting with my social worker at the time, and he said, "I have this great program for you."

All I knew it for was the job training.

It was what I needed at the time.

- Climb Wyoming is a job-training program.

We do job training and placement for low-income single moms.

Part of our programming is also mental health, so individual and group counseling.

It's a 12-week program.

It's pretty short.

And in that 12 weeks, we are really trying to offer industry-specific type of training.

- So that could be truck driving.

It could be office careers, certified medical assisting, nursing assistant, welding.

It could be a variety of jobs that are just relevant and in demand in their communities.

- All of the components of Climb are free.

We're working with women, pretty significant poverty.

If there's a family, a mom and two children, they might be making $500 a month, so really don't have money to come through the job-training program.

(door hinge squeaks) - Hey, Megan, how's it going?

- Hi.

Good.

- Is it still raining out?

- No.

- No?

Oh good.

Come on in.

All right, have a seat wherever.

I do all of the counseling when moms come through the training program.

I see moms individually for counseling every other week and then group counseling every week.

- Things are slowly just starting to move to where we're stabilized.

- Yeah.

- [Megan] Now we're trying to find a new place to live.

- [Stephannie] Yeah, so just changes, it sounds like some good things coming your way and just transition.

- Yeah.

- We've had success when we support moms with their mental health.

It's hard to walk in the door and show up physically when you're leaving behind so much and maybe mentally or somewhere else because ultimately we wanna support moms staying on the job.

These women seem to be really isolated in our communities.

They're not very connected.

They lack community and support.

So we work a lot on rewiring the brain a little bit.

If you get frustrated, or you get, you know, irritated with a coworker, you have to know how to manage those things and to slow down, turn the temperature down a little bit, and to be able to respond instead of react.

So we provide a mental-health component to the job-training program because we know that living in poverty impacts the brain.

So it takes a lot of patience probably to hang with what you're doing.

- You know, are we gonna be able to still afford rent?

Are we still gonna be able to afford, you know.

- Poverty affects the brain because you can't afford proper nutrition.

You're eating a lot of processed food, which is a lot cheaper than healthy options.

And there is a connection between poverty and mental health.

It can lead to depression.

It can lead to anxiety, suicidal behavior.

- When you live below the poverty level, and your basic needs are not met, the daily survival that it requires to figure out how to get food for the day or how to get a ride somewhere or how to make rent for that month, it's hard to think about a whole lot else to plan ahead, to organize and think down the road.

So at Climb, a lot of what we work on is to think today, "What do I need next month?"

instead of just "What do I need tomorrow?"

Megan, because you worked so hard to get to that point.

- Yeah.

- The stress of poverty, like depression and anxiety symptoms, really puts any individual that's been through poverty at a disadvantage when they think about getting ready to go to work.

In therapy, women increase the ability to navigate all of the things that come up in everyday life, which I think really helps them be successful on the job and also as a parent in their families.

- We have therapy sessions for, you know, any mental health issues that need to be resolved.

I have all these problems.

I have depression.

I have anxiety.

It's helped me in so many ways.

- [Stephannie] Just a multitude of things are kind of happening that probably are making that feel hard.

- [Megan] Everything is getting super, super expensive.

- The mental health aspect has been a critical tool for poverty alleviation.

So we're really working on building a different part of the brain that has executive functioning skills, and we're also connecting moms to resources like food and shelter so those basic needs are met.

So then they move out of that part of their brain into a different part of the brain where they're really able to focus on growing organization, planning, emotional regulation, problem-solving.

- The tools I use to plan out my days is I'll use a whiteboard, just really a reminder for me sometimes, just like, oh yeah, I have that meeting at 1:30, or, oh yeah, Josephine has this going on at this time.

I don't like not knowing or not remembering, you know?

'Cause then you miss out on all the memories, or you miss out on so much.

- And then what year would she- - It's very individualized and really guided by the participant that's come to Climb and her identifying what's gotten in her way of working successfully long-term.

- I know there's things that I can do, but sometimes it's like, am I strong enough to do that?

Am I brave enough to do that?

You know, is it gonna make a difference?

Okay, I have something to challenge myself with.

There's several other moms who have these mental health issues too.

But then, you know, we all sit around in a group session sometimes.

You get to hear every single mom and what they're going through compared to what you're going through.

And so it just helps you make you feel like you're not alone.

What matters is what I'm doing now and.

- What we know is that a lot of people who have gone through mental health and substance use disorders really do isolate themselves.

So by creating that positive support group at a very local level gives a lot of those moms, in this case, the opportunity to check back in, that opportunity to connect.

It's about community.

(gentle guitar music) - After getting sober, I got a great job at Ivinson Memorial Hospital.

I am a claims resolution specialist.

From Climb, they helped me find a great job.

A claims resolution specialist, it's part of the billing department.

Good morning, Karen.

- [Karen] Good morning, Megan.

- So I work with insurances, trying to get, you know, patients' claims paid for, covered.

I deal with a lot of patients asking if, you know, their insurance is gonna cover the surgery, that type of stuff.

Yep, I have them.

- [Caller] Do you think you'll be able to get to that this week?

- Probably by the beginning of next week.

The environment there is, it's amazing.

In Laramie, I've never really felt judged.

- So he doesn't have a VA authorization.

- What prosthetic?

Is it his arm, leg?

I've never had coworkers that were happy to see me when I walk in the door or just little stuff like that.

It just makes it 10 times better.

- And how is Josie?

- She's good.

- She's good?

- I'm grateful for them, truthfully.

Like, I've never met nicer people.

I worked my butt off through Climb.

It was all worth it, and it's still worth it, truthfully.

Climb had classes at Laramie Community College.

I was, you know, studying every night.

I was also trying to be a mom to Josephine at the same time.

Gotta have dinner, but I'm still reading a book for school.

When it came test time, it was just so nerve-wracking.

I had a vehicle.

It got stolen, so I was starting to ride bikes from one side of the town to the other just to make it to class on time.

But I was so determined to make it to class.

My classmates started to notice.

(laughs) They're like, "No, you can't be doing this."

- Our moms are also supported by individuals in Laramie who step up to, whether it's give rides or provide childcare or food resources.

There are a lot of different ways that they support our moms as they come through the program and head into work.

- I used to get some rides from a guy that would volunteer at Laramie Community Connections.

It was a free ride.

I would text him, like, "Hey, can you come get me from class or from work?"

And so he did that a few times a week for me.

It was amazing.

I didn't know I had that resource.

- Communities play the strongest role in helping families.

Even though we consider ourselves individuals and rough and rugged, we all live in a community.

The individual one-on-one attention a neighbor can give to another neighbor to help, it's the way that organizations organize themselves and support those families, those families that maybe are at risk.

And certainly, local government has a role and a part of it, as does state government.

But I think we sometimes overcomplicate what it is that we think we can do, and it has to be somebody else.

It has to be this magic thing of infusion of money and programming.

And I think what we learned through COVID is that just checking on people, just seeing how they are, giving them the time to be able to kind of express what their needs are and looking for a way to meet those needs was pretty tremendous.

Churches are a huge support.

We have congregations.

We have people that reach out to us and say, "How can we help you?

We recognize that you have a lot of families in need.

How can we help?"

So they stock us full of diapers and clothes and car seats and things like that.

And that's then something that we can also provide to moms when they have to face a choice.

They have a car, but they may not be able to have a car seat.

You know, every little small thing matters.

One of the biggest challenges we actually have is just knowing all what's out there.

And so connecting at a very individual level is what we do every day.

And we're grateful for whatever resource, big or small, we have in any one of our communities.

- I think that communities are critical.

And in some of our communities, I've been amazed as I travel around the state in how many little groups there are.

The more our communities have that kind of network, the better off everybody will be, and not just for our mental health, but for everybody who needs help.

(birds chirping) - Hi, welcome.

- Thank you.

- As the Chief Operating Officer for Climb Wyoming, I'm responsible for six program locations across the state.

We have a 98% graduation rate.

About 86% of women maintain their job or have increased their wage two years post-program.

I think one of the things that's harder to describe are the confidence and the increased strength of mental health as women leave the program.

Sometimes to me, that feels more important but harder to measure as we think about success.

- If we've lived in crisis for most of our lives, we can learn to live a different way and to manage those things with different skills and tools.

There's no other program like this in the country.

We are unique in Wyoming.

Part of that is because we focus on mental health and barriers to success.

- It's really cool to see a mom as she increases her stability.

That ripple effect is very real for those kids, and they now can see a future that they didn't know existed because their mom has found that future for herself too.

(gentle music) - My idea of a happy day, probably just either camping with my family, you know, just being out and about on a nice sunny day.

As long as I have Josephine and Chris, I'm all right.

I'm so thankful that I met Chris when I did.

He's just super supportive.

He always has been.

He's been my rock.

He literally told me, "Look, this is a great program.

It sounds like something that needs to be done."

Josephine likes to color, play with her Lego blocks.

We read books together every night before bed.

She's always been my little love bug.

She's a cuddler.

She always has been.

She's a very social butterfly.

Glad I get to see, you know, the way she grows up.

- I've seen Megan grow greatly in her confidence and her ability to ask for what she needs.

That's been really cool to watch.

- [Molly] It's really about the climb that's happening in a woman's career, from maybe not working or working a low-wage job, into a profession and on a career trajectory that maybe she didn't know she could be on or existed.

- I have seen women work so hard to climb out of the places that they've been.

It's not happening to you.

You're actively participating in your growth and transformation.

You're a part of it.

- Being a full-time parent, you know, playing the mom and the dad, it's a hard job.

Single mothers are worth fighting for 'cause they're doing it by themselves to just get a step higher for stabilization and for a better life for them and their family.

- I think we can all agree that family is important, and that if we're thinking about family, whatever its configuration is, and we're thinking about supporting families, then I think we all think we have a better shot at better outcomes.

- I wanna make a difference in other single moms' lives.

And it may have been hard for me, and it may be easier for somebody else, but, you know, everybody has their own problems.

They can always make it through it as long as they want to help themselves.

- It's okay to ask for help.

I'm not any less than if I ask for help, I think is huge.

That's a life skill that benefits people far into the future.

- I mean, I have my moments where I'm like, "I wish my kids were all together."

I can't say that I fully regret my choices because I will never say that I regret any of my children.

I know my other kids are in great hands, and hopefully one day I'll get to see them again.

But for now, I am happy to be a mom to Josephine.

In this moment right now, I wouldn't change it for the world.

(gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music continues) (gentle upbeat music continues)