Penquis is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1967 to alleviate and eliminate the causes and conditions of poverty. Through its programs and subsidiaries, Penquis impacts all of Maine’s sixteen counties, but primarily serves low- and moderate-income individuals in Penobscot, Piscataquis and Knox counties.

Programs We Fund

Success Stories.

David had strong views on parenting, especially using forms of physical punishment, like spanking, to teach his own children and others. He also had a strong core belief about men being on top of the family hierarchical structure. We discussed this participant in length during clinical supervision in hopes of finding a way to approach him that would help him see how his core beliefs and actions were negatively impacting his partner and children. During classes we continued to teach core themes, including parenting, violence in the home, socialization of men and women as children, challenging men’s beliefs on the hierarchical family structure, and male privilege. At around week 40, when the facilitator was discussing a topic on parenting, a different participant shared his beliefs about spanking children. When David also started to share, the facilitators were ready to step in and call on someone else. To their surprise, David started provided factual information on the negative impact of spanking and openly shared meaningful insights. He went even further by talking about the impact of spanking children who have previously seen their father use violence against their mother. When asked about his new perspective, David reported he used to believe in spanking but no longer was using that form of punishment because the potential negative impact was too great. This demonstrates how the DVIP program successfully creates change in two ways: One participant reported they stopped spanking, and another participant heard the negative impact of spanking from a peer.