Chicago, IL – Community Counseling Center of Chicago (C4) recently received a grant of $7,500 from The Northern Trust Company to support C4’s Parent Education Program. The Parent Education Program at C4, which started in 1996, provides opportunities for low-income parents to learn effective skills that strengthen family relationships and reduce the incidence of child abuse and neglect. Presented as an eight-week series of positive parenting skills training, three individualized home visits, and an on-going support group, the parent education program is designed to enhance parent-child interaction, foster child growth and development, improve family functioning in areas such as problem-solving, social support, and use of community resources.
 
Emphasis is also placed on creating community systems of support, which assist parents in caring for their children. As part of Northern Trust’s broad philanthropic vision, The Northern Trust Charitable Trust was established in September 1966 to support nonprofit organizations in Cook County. The Trust’s primary focus is to reach out to people in the Chicago area who are in need or face obstacles that impede their full participation in society. Their grant making focuses on advancing the well-being of disadvantaged women and children and people with disabilities by supporting programs in Chatham, Englewood, Humboldt Park, Logan Square, Loop, Washington Park, and West Town. Within these communities, the Trust supports organizations with a program focus in three areas: children, neighborhoods, and community.
 
The $7,500 grant from the Northern Trust Company will be used to provide parenting classes, home visits, and an ongoing support group to families living in the Chicago communities of Avondale, Humboldt Park, and Logan Square. C4 which currently operates eight facilities throughout the city of Chicago, offers a comprehensive array of services: 24-hour crisis response and emergency assessment, short-term counseling, intensive psychotherapy and support groups, a variety of therapy modes, including art and expressive therapy, psychiatric and medication evaluations, medication clinics and education on medication monitoring, substance abuse treatment services, vocational services, parenting skills classes, case management and linkage to community resources, psychosocial rehabilitation services, representative payee and financial management services as well as services for survivors of sexual violence.
 
Established in 1972 as a grassroots response to a federal policy that left to communities the task of developing services for people who were released from psychiatric hospitals into neighborhoods that were ill-equipped to provide for their needs, C4 has continually developed services to address a multitude of behavioral health issues that exist in the community. With highly qualified staff who speak more than 21 languages and dialects, the agency receives citywide referrals and serves approximately 3,000 consumers monthly. Last year, C4 served 7,000 unduplicated consumers. For more information on C4’s Parent Education Program, please contact, Katharine Bensinger at 773.765.0829.