Program helps families bolster ties

You’d think an underemployed single father of five would have enough on his hands without spending a couple of hours every Wednesday night listening to someone tell him how to be a better dad.

Walter Cabe III, who earns $1,200 a month working as many hours as he can for a cabinet manufacturer, figures he can use all the help he can get. He counts himself lucky to have spent the past eight Wednesdays with his children at the American Indian Community Center.

“It’s been a struggle to get here at times,” Cabe said, “but I decided to make it a point to do whatever it took to get here.”

This week, Cabe’s families and eight others celebrated their completion of the Strengthening Families Program, a free course designed to prevent teen substance abuse and build parenting skills in low-income families with few other avenues for help.

The center offered the program in partnership with Spokane County Community Services with the help of a $7,500 federal grant administered through the state Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse.

On the last night of the course, Cabe sat in a small room in the east Spokane center with a dozen other parents. They listened to Alan Zeuge, a substance-abuse prevention coordinator for Spokane County Community Services, present scenarios that stress families every day: A 16-year-old, straight-A student lets his grades slip and stays out past curfew. A single father loses his job and can’t afford to fix his pickup.

The parents weighed each dilemma against their training and responded to Zeuge’s scenarios: Daybreak in Spokane provides in-patient and out-patient drug treatment for teens. WorkSource offers vocational education. The state Department of Social and Health Services could provide a car-repair grant.

While the parents met upstairs, their children ages 10 to 14 – an age especially vulnerable to peer pressure – met downstairs with Debbie Sweeny, a para-educator with the Indian center.

Sweeny brought in a panel of older Native American youths to discuss goal-setting, parents and following the rules.

Younger children were taken to another room to participate in Second Steps, a violence prevention program. American Indian Community Center employees taught social skills to the smallest kids – empathy, managing emotions and problem solving.

Later, parents and children came together to practice their new skills, play games and participate in family projects.

There are 18 children in the programs.

Cabe’s kids range in age from 3 to 12. Like the other families, his was recruited by Matilda Sampson, the center’s Indian Child Welfare and Family Services manager.

At a time when many similar programs are shutting down as a result of federal budget cuts, Sampson said, she was glad she could offer Strengthening Families to the parents.

“They walked in with no hope (of finding help), and now they have hope,” Sampson said. She plans to offer another eight-week course in the fall. Like the one just completed, it will be open to anyone, not just Indian families.

Cabe, whose wife left him, grew up in a family that “split in all directions.” For a family to be happy, he said, it has to learn to deal with problems together.

After traditional Native American drummers offered songs in honor of the families, Cabe told the crowd of parents, children and teachers he was grateful to the center for helping him and for introducing him to the other families, who have become his friends.

“I just hope this night doesn’t mean goodbye,” he said.