Struggling students expecting children or already with children can seek financial assistance in the student center.

Our campus health department can help any student that believes they may be pregnant. They can offer any student birth control counseling, a pregnancy test or a Sexually Transmitted Diseases test.

Campus nurse, Kathleen Barzegar, said having and knowing where children do or do not fit into your life plan is important for the birth control counseling.

Barzegar said, they can go over any type of contraception you wanted to know about during their birth control counseling services. They can also offer you a pregnancy test for the price of one dollar, and then follow up with you about any questions regarding what your next steps could be.

The Family Planning Access Care and Treatment program is a program from the government. It is for people that do not have insurance, or are covered by their parents’ insurance yet still want access to contraception.

“If we have a student come in that does not qualify for Family PACT, or they have private insurance. Generally what I’ll do is, just make them an appointment to do the [birth control] counseling piece.” Barzegar said.

If you are having complications with a pregnancy and find yourself unable to attend class, you could petition for an emergency withdrawal.

“Emergency withdrawal is for extenuating circumstances,” said counselor Tina Dang.

To petition for that you would need to see admissions and records, and they would help you from that point. An emergency withdrawal could drop all classes for you and they would not be counted against you in the future.

If you are a single expecting parent, there are programs on campus like California Work Opportunities and Responsibility to Kids and Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education to assist you.

CARE is a program connected with EOPS for parents. In order to receive support from CARE, you must be a single parent taking 12 or more units that is receiving cash aid.

“They offer lots and lots of resources like sometimes its gas cards, sometimes its book vouchers and supplies.” Dang said about the CARE program.

CalWORKs offers equally as many resources as CARE does, and it will pay for a student’s supplies along with getting a case worker for the student, Dang said.

Like CARE, CalWORKs is for financially struggling parents. CalWORKs can offer academic counseling, mental health counseling and even child care, according to the SJCC school website.

“It’s important to reinforce with everybody,” Barzegar said, “the services that we provide at Student Health services are private and confidential.”