Hopes to Attend Graduate School Here
 
 

By Go Urata

Regina Buxton, planning to enter the college's graduate program in social work, is a former welfare mother who hopes to be in a position to guide adolescents away from some of the hazards that tripped her up.

The single parent of two daughters, a teen-ager and one in grade school, is a 1998 graduate of the campus Welfare Rights Initiative course and York College, with a major in psychology and a minor in women's studies.

Buxton now supports her family by working for the Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children with teen-agers who are neglected or experiencing physical and sexual abuse. Her job is to assist in making an assessment of their needs.

Buxton, 34, became a mother when she was 20. She started college three years later, attending full-time. Her boyfriend didn't contribute financially to the household and after the birth of a second child she ended the relationship. Without child care, she applied for welfare and relied on it while she attended college. For the first few years, Buxton left the younger child at a day care center. However, her class schedule didn't fit in a schedule of the center and she started to attend classes only after her older daughter returned home from her own school and could tend the younger one.

During this era, Buxton, receiving $260 a month in public assistance, was expected by the welfare department to come to its office every two months to explain why she should not be required to work. She was seen by a different caseworker each time and had to start from the beginning, justifying her college attendance.

In her senior year, her payments were reduced to $104 a month. To this day, Buxton is not sure why.

In addition to facing the demands of the welfare department, Buxton also had to cope with criticism from her family for being on welfare. In all, it took 10 years for Buxton to earn her diploma.

She now has a job she enjoys, even though she is struggling financially. Buxton now wants to work for the public school system as a guidance counselor. Many adolescents are facing the same kinds of problems she has confronted, she said.

``I'd like to receive master's degree in social work and hopefully a doctorate degree one day,'' Buxton said

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