(Host) With just a few days to go before Mother's Day, we visit a program that's helping low-income single mothers learn workplace and parenting skills. Three years ago the Family Place in Norwich began its Families Learning Together program. It helps families transition from state assistance to full work. One of the ways they're doing that is by teaching women how to make jewelry. It's called the Jewelrios program, and VPR's Sarah Ashworth joined a handful of women one morning.

(Ashworth) A big salad bowl of multi-colored beads sits squarely in the middle of two folding tables, and from time to time everyone scoops out a handful.

(True)(sound of beads) "We have some pretty pink stones in here"

(Ashworth) Many of the young women gathered around the bead bowl lost their supportive circle of family and friends when they first became pregnant. That's what happened to Tamara Brown who is 29 years old and the mother of four.

(Brown) "I got pregnant at 16, had my first child at 17, and my friends were all there throughout my pregnancy until I left school, and nobody bothered with me after that, and I'm not from around here so coming out here I had no friends."

(Ashworth) But Brown made new friends through the program, and one of them is sitting to her right, crocheting beads into silk strands of thread.

(sound of crocheting)

(Ashworth) Jen Smith has an 18-month old daughter named Dakota, and says the program has helped her become a better mother.

(Smith) "I started out by being very isolated, at my mom's house in Sharon and since then I've moved out on my own completely, moved out with my daughter, I am enrolled in college; they're a lot just within me, being self-sufficient, being able to fend for myself, and not be afraid to go out in public, just being all about my daughter, that's it, I no longer put myself first, my daughter comes first."

(Ashworth) The 13 participating mothers work in either the center's kitchen, daycare, or office, or they make jewelry twice a week. The jewelry program is the brainchild of Family Place employee Julia Dickenson, who says she's a firm believer in busy hands.

(Dickenson) "You can see that right, we're all sitting around a table and we're all working on separate pieces but it's all part of a whole, the same way that a quilt is made, and in a quilting bee, you're sharing your joys, your sorrows, your grievances; and that was often women's work, having that time and space, you're getting something done, but you're also reaching out to your neighbors and sharing."

(Ashworth) Dickenson knows what she's doing. She's been a jeweler for 18 years. She used to run her own studio in Santa Fe, before moving to the Upper Valley. She was working as a case manager when she realized she could recreate her studio at the Family Place.

(Dickenson) "I'd like to say I'm not trying to encourage any of these women to be jewelers, but I think what we're doing here is just working on the skills it takes to be in any job, you know showing up on time, taking criticism, taking a project from start to finish, looking at quality, consistency, so really, all of those types of skills would be appropriate for any job."

(Ashworth) While working, Dickenson tries to replicate a business atmosphere. Cell phones, visitors, and swearing aren't allowed. Though, not many topics are off limits when it comes to the conversation.

(sound of working)

(all) "Everything and anything, we've got some great singers here, really good karaoke here, the radio's not on right now, but usually this place is rocking, the main topic is generally babies, men, general life stuff."

(Jen Smith) "Just a lot of boyfriend troubles or try to get motherly advice from other mothers or different experiences people have been through, and others are going through, just general life issues that us as moms can all get together and just relate to each other on."

(Ashworth) Tamara Brown says she's also learned how to stay focused and see a project through to the end.

(Brown) "I like seeing the finished product and just hearing about the people who purchase them, how much they like them, and then you hear them talking about their friends, and their friends want to purchase them, and it makes you feel really good knowing you were a part of it (Ashworth: have you ever seen anyone wearing the jewelry) all the time, just walking out you see them wearing it, or you'll have people come in and say oh look I'm wearing one of your necklaces, (Jen Smith): I sat in school one night with a girl who had one on, and I said you got that at the Family Place, just felt great."

(Ashworth) Each piece of jewelry made by the women at the Family Place has a pewter Cheerio-shaped charm attached to it...and it's what naturally gives the Jewelrios program its name.

For VPR News, I'm Sarah Ashworth.