“Parenting is so isolating in the beginning,” says Measi O’Rourke, founder of Saint Joseph Parenting Center (SJPC), with locations in Stamford, Danbury, and Bridgeport. “You think everybody knows what they’re doing. And the truth is, nobody knows what they’re doing.”
For new parents who have a network—family and friends, pediatricians, family leave—there’s some respite during those early, crazy months of interrupted sleep, midnight feedings, and general chaos. But for at-risk families who haven’t grown up in the most stable environments, a newborn can be a stressor they don’t know how to handle, with sometimes-dire results. That’s where O’Rourke and SJPC, step in. “There are a lot of parents out there who did not have a healthy model of what parenting looks like, and were very much abused themselves,” she says. “Then we expect them to just pick up and take care of their own children,” and that unhealthy cycle never gets repaired. “These parents, they absolutely want the best for their child,” she adds. “They just don’t know how to do it.” But, she believes, they can learn.
O’Rourke first learned about parenting education while living in Ohio, outside Cleveland. A mother of five and an RN, she was considering going back to work when the pastor at her church suggested she look into a nearby parenting center. She became its director of volunteer services and saw first-hand how it helped new mothers and fathers grow. The job was a natural fit for O’Rourke. “It combined everything I’ve done in my life,” she says. “My maternal-child skills, nursing, raising five kids, working with teens in our church. I was like, this is putting all my gifts and all my passions in one place.” After she and her family moved back to the East Coast, O’Rourke aspired to create a similar center here.
“My husband Jamie encouraged me, but I was like, I’m a nurse, I can’t start a nonprofit,” she says. “Then I had a kind of spectacular spiritual moment, of God saying, ‘I need you to help me protect all my children.’ And I thought, okay, this is what I have to do.”
With her husband’s help, O’Rourke put together a business plan, got seed money, created a 510(c)(3) nonprofit, and opened the Stamford location in 2010, followed by Danbury and now Bridgeport. About half their clients come via the Department of Children and Families, where parental education may be part of a case plan. The other half find their way to via family centers, preschools, pediatricians’ offices, or word-of-mouth. “We have a huge Spanish-speaking population,” says O’Rourke. “They are more likely to come voluntarily, and like it so much they bring their grandmother, or sister-in-law or aunt or uncle. That’s a community unto itself.”
What do parents learn at SJPC? There’s a 23-class course in general parenting that, in some cases, a parent might be required to complete, but the classes can also be taken on a drop-in basis. On any given day, a case worker might meet one-on-one with a parent whose child is acting out, to develop an action plan and help them get support. A parent might be taking a nutrition and healthy living class to learn about making a good meal plan on a food stamps budget (the majority of SJPC clients are below the poverty level). There might be a meeting of Dads are the Difference, a program specifically for fathers to connect and bond. A counselor might be helping a family make a doctor’s appointment or fill out insurance paperwork. “For a lot of people, especially new immigrants, even making a phone call for a doctor’s appointment can throw them,” says O’Rourke. “We’ll hold their hand; we’ll go to meetings with them. That’s what the case workers do.”
And SJPC isn’t just there for the baby years. “We’re here for you until your youngest child is 12,” says O’Rourke. “We have parents who come and go for years. That’s the idea. It’s a community center for parents to come at any time, to get support that they need.”
For more information, please visit sjpcenter.org•