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Family and Pastoral Center
Family
The Abraham House Family Center component offers social services to help families overcome poverty, incarceration, substance abuse, domestic violence, juvenile delinquency, truancy, and other issues that cause disruption to the family unit.
- These services include case management and crisis intervention, individual and family counseling, parenting skills, and emergency support services. The Family Center also makes referrals to other supportive agencies and programs with which Abraham House has formed working partnerships for issues ranging from GED or computer classes to immigration, housing, finances, medical, or other basic support services.
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On Saturdays, families have the opportunity to participate in group workshops and facilitated discussion groups to gain information and learn coping strategies for issues such as domestic violence and recognizing symptoms of and managing chronic illness (asthma, diabetes, obesity). In this setting families can safely express feelings of anxiety, guilt, fear, loneliness.
- Workshops are also offered for parents to teach the stages of child development, positive approaches to discipline, and effective ways to communicate with children and school administrators.
- The goal is to stabilize the family unit and move it out of living crisis to crisis so that long term goals can be achieved.
Community
The Pastoral Center component mirrors the parish model. It is a place
where people with shared interests can come together as a community and
find solace, strength, and friendship.Most parishes are defined by
geography: at Abraham House, incarceration, or the risk of
incarceration, defines the parish. Persons of all faiths are welcome at
Abraham House and families have the opportunity to draw on their own
religious beliefs to deepen their faith. The program offers religious
education for youth, spiritual counseling, and Catholic Mass. On
Saturdays a communal hot meal prepared by program participants and
volunteers is served, and residents, families, staff and friends sit
down together to share as a community.
In addition, Abraham House serves the wider Mott Haven community by:
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Providing a food pantry: every Saturday morning bags of food and staples are available to anyone who comes to our door.
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Offering a clothing bank: neighborhood residents are welcome to clothes, blankets and other new or gently used goods.
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| THE FACT |
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Nationally, more than half of released offenders are back in prison within three years. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
While people in every state and of every race, gender and income level make up the nation's dropouts, the crisis affects low-income youth, males, Hispanics and African-Americans disproportionately. Center for Labor Market Studies.
Strengthening the family network improves outcomes for both the prisoner and the individual family members. Urban Institute, Justice Policy Center.
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