PASSing it on

Meredith Pack, Associate Director of Communications

Most parenting is learned through experience. How parents were treated when they were young is often how they treat their children. That’s not always a good thing.

The Parents Acquiring Skills and Strength (PASS) program is now in its second decade and has helped hundreds of parents. The goal of the program is to prevent child abuse and neglect — educating parents to break the cycle of abuse they grew up with.

Karen Feldmanis, Parent Educator at Home of the Innocents, has taken this course a few blocks from the Home to the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections. There she teaches PASS to young women through the Enough is Enough program, the largest jail detox facility in Kentucky. The program, one of the largest in the nation, treats 60 men and 30 women in the jail setting who are battling addiction to drugs and alcohol. Education, training, and preparedness for life outside of addiction take place in a community atmosphere.

PASS uses the “Nurturing Parenting Program” curriculum to offer parent education, self-help, and support groups for all families in our community.

Class members may include those looking for new parenting skills to deal with the tough job of raising children in a healthy environment; those who are parenting while coping with stresses such as single parenting, leaving domestic violence, divorce, parenting sober for the first time; those who are raising grandchildren or may be at-risk and have some involvement with the Department for Community Based Services (also known as Child Protective Services).

The women in the Enough is Enough program are getting more than just parenting skills from Karen’s classes.
One inmate shared, “Miss Karen’s class has opened up my heart and memories of my children. I am learning to heal and praying for a healthy future with them. I’m truly grateful for her class, it’s taught me so much about my parenting skills and daily life skills.”

Some participants are not yet parents, but the class has made them understand differences in parenting styles so they are prepared for the future. “I’ve learned a lot about my childhood from this class. Miss Karen helped me recognize what healthy parenting is and what parenting styles I want to practice when I become a mom.”

PASS classes go far beyond parenting skills. Participants learn to recognize how their childhoods may contribute to their thoughts and actions. “Miss Karen has made it clear, I am not defined by my past, but by what I choose to do now and in the future.”

For more information about PASS classes, call 502.596.1303.

Read more articles from our summer newsletter here.