A year ago, a Florida mother said goodbye to her hometown city and moved to Naperville, where her adolescent daughter was facing a cold reality harsher than Chicago winters: treatment at a live-in counseling center.
The mother, Debra, 43, says her daughter needed to get away from bad influences in Florida, so the mother, who is divorced, came to live with her daughter in an unfamiliar area.
But while the daughter improved, the mother unraveled. Alone and almost broke, Debra had given up her stability so that her 15-year-old daughter could have a chance to acquire some.
”She got herself in with a bunch of wild kids and a bunch of legal trouble,” Debra recalls, ”and I just thought if she didn`t go back into the same situation she`d be a whole lot better off.”
But finding support for herself was more difficult until Debra heard about women`s groups that meet weekly at the Naperville Community Outreach Center, 113 E. Van Buren Ave.
”I was in a situation where I was really hit with a lot of financial problems, and it`s really hard being a single parent,” she said. ”It was kind of nice getting into a group where a lot of people are going through the same thing.”
At the private, not-for-profit center, groups are available to women in crises. Many are single mothers who are newly divorced and working for the first time. Many also are victims of abuse, said Beverly Garrett, program coordinator of clinical studies and group counselor. Group meetings are free for women who can`t pay and $5 for those who can.
Mary, 35, an only child whose parents are dead, was married to a man who physically abused her. She said she felt alone after her divorce until she joined a group.
”You have somebody telling you they love you and yet they`re beating you, so it makes you wonder what`s wrong with you,” Mary said. ”What really kind of pushed me (to leave the marriage) was when he did it when the kids were in the room. But I didn`t know what I was going to do. I had myself and the two kids living on the street. The group helped me bring it into focus.” The weekly sessions help women improve their self-esteem and their relationships.
”If you`ve come from an abusive situation, it`s very difficult to know how . . . to speak in a manner that will give you some credibility in the world,” said Garrett, who is a state-certified alcohol and drug counselor.
Group counseling often leads to dramatic changes, Garrett said. She sees women pack up and leave an abusive situation, women who have never worked in their lives get jobs to help support themselves and their children, and mothers steering their youngsters into rehabilitation after long denying the children had substance-abuse problems.
`The group kind of gives everybody the strength to get up a plan, have goals for yourself, and accomplish them,” Debra said.
