One of the state’s largest providers of mental health and addiction services has received a $9.7 million federal grant to launch a new program to improve parenting skills of fathers in Bartholomew and five other Indiana counties.
Next month, Centerstone will launch POPS, an acronym for Providing Opportunities for Parental Success, in part to a grant from the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The POPS program is aimed at identifying barriers that prevent fathers from being involved in their children’s lives and finding ways to overcome such barriers, Centerstone officials said.
The new program will be targeting biological fathers, stepfathers and expectant fathers in Bartholomew, Brown, Lawrence, Monroe, Morgan and Owen counties, said Richard Kosmala, program manager in Bloomington.
Special consideration will be given to fathers who are past or present members of the military, fathers between the ages of 16 and 24 and at-risk fathers who are low-income or eligible for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or those involved with the criminal justice system.
For more on this story, see Thursday’s Republic.
