How The L.O.V.E. Mentoring Program Is Building The Next Generation Of Confident Women Leaders

The world has changed quite a bit since Dr. Claudia Espinosa arrived in the United States as a young woman in 2000. 

“There’s more services, more opportunities,” she notes. However, many of the challenges adversely affecting young Latinas persist. 

New York City Latinas, specifically, experience higher suicide attempts (22%), teenage pregnancy (60.1%), and high school dropout rates (5.2%) than any other demographic of girls in the country.

This is due to a variety of reasons: being an immigrant, or first-generation American, and dealing with assimilation to a new culture, not having a strong support system and/or adequate resources, and the general physical, cognitive, and psychosocial challenges of adolescence itself. 

“It’s a combination of all those factors together that can lead young girls to feel hopeless about their futures,” Dr. Claudia explained. 

Enter the Latinas On the Verge of Excellence (L.O.V.E.) mentoring program. 

The L.O.V.E program aims to educate and thereby empower young women to recognize their strengths and achieve their personal and professional goals. 

“L.O.V.E is a health program,” Dr. Claudia told Her Agenda, “We teach our students mental and reproductive health [as well as] college and career readiness”.  

As such, L.O.V.E partners with schools directly to integrate courses into existing curriculums throughout the standard academic year. This distinction is perhaps what makes it so effective. It is seamlessly incorporated into regular school hours, making it a convenient and accessible resource for students.  

In addition to the curriculum, which may include courses such as self-advocacy, there is a peer-to-peer mentoring aspect, which Dr. Claudia particularly credits for making the program as uniquely successful as it is. 

“Education is not just about academic achievement. It’s understanding the individual as a whole,” she stated, “It’s always been about social and emotional learning and the importance of looking at education from a holistic lens”.

Generally, classes consist of about 25 female students along with about four female mentors. 

“We recruit college students.” Dr. Claudia clarified, i.e., young girls to mentor other young girls. 

“It’s relatable role modeling,” she continued. “They understand what the students go through because they have experienced it themselves”. 

14 years after its creation in 2009, the program has seen exponential growth, particularly in the five years since the COVID-19 pandemic, as more schools started to see the value of more comprehensive mental health education for students.

Early in her career, Dr. Claudia worked as an intake counselor at a suicide prevention program. While there, she was able to see firsthand the mental health challenges young women face due to a lack of resources and how that subsequently affects their ability to want more for themselves. 

This is what the L.O.V.E. program aims to address. 

“The goal is to shift that sense of hopelessness, to [one of] actually being able to overcome those challenges and achieve the goals.”

It’s a visible mindset shift, “a blossoming”, that she reports seeing in real time as the program progresses. From, as per data collected from L.O.V.E alumni surveys, students enhancing their vocabulary, and thus their ability to speak up for themselves (94% of students reported language skills acquisition based on their participation in the program), to improved self-esteem (93% reported that the program helped increase their self-confidence), to successful graduation rates (91% of students who complete the program graduated from high school and went on to pursue higher education). 

“It’s all about having the right support system, the right guidance, the right mentorship, and so that is what L.O.V.E does.”  

Dr. Claudia’s goal is to expand the L.O.V.E program to all schools in NYC and beyond. Currently, she is working towards building a school in Miami. 

Those wanting to support this great work as mentors, or those seeking to learn more, can find the L.O.V.E program on all social platforms, reach out via email (info@lovementoring.org), or visit their website at: https://www.lovementoring.org