April 2019 Est. 1985
Your Community Newspaper
The Northside Chronicle
Volume 35 Issue 4 - FREE -
Photo by Ashlee Green
Peter Jenkins is the fatherhood support specialist at Providence Connections Family Support Center in Marshall-Shadeland, where he leads support groups for men who are struggling with life changes. “Being a man doesn’t have to be an isolated, solitary experience,” he says.
Fatherhood support groups help men heal By Ashlee Green It was late December of 2018, and the last day that staff at Providence Connections Family Support Center, located on Brighton Road in Marshall-Shadeland, was around before the holiday break began. Peter Jenkins recalls that the Christmas party was wrapping up, and he was helping the rest of the staff clean up, when a father showed up at the door and said “I need help.”
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Jenkins welcomed the father inside, sat him down, and they started to talk about which gaps—in wealth, health and time management, for example—his family was experiencing. “Anywhere a father comes from, he’s welcome,” says Jenkins, fatherhood engagement specialist at Providence. He explains that though family units may look much different than they did in the 1950s, there’s still a group of people that count on
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each other to do what needs to be done for the upkeep of the household and the health and wellness of the family members. What was once known as the nuclear family—two parents and their children—has often been replaced with single parents, parents with adopted children, grandparents who are taking care of their children’s children, and a slew of other combinations. “We’re not focused on what your family necessarily looks like,
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we’re focused on the well-being and the success of whoever’s under that roof,” Jenkins says. Under the umbrella of Providence’s many community offerings is the Fatherhood Program, started in 2016. Its main goal: to foster a sense of fraternity and fellowship between fathers. Ian Quarles found out about the program not long after it began, at a time when he was going through a family crisis of his See Fathers, Page 7
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