family
Building strong foundations for healthy futures.
Strengthening families and connecting them with the support they need to create healthy homes and a stable future for their kids is vital to building thriving communities. We know that keeping young people connected to their family, and children to their young parents, can lead to positive outcomes for all family members. The key is ensuring that families have the supports in place to overcome challenges, navigate systems, and access opportunities to create their own positive change.
Family & NATURAL SUPPORTS
The Family and Natural Supports team provides family first oriented supports, case management, peer-based support, and therapy interventions to strengthen family units, facilitate family reconnection and reunification where appropriate, and prevent instances of family separation and child apprehension. This program seeks to support and facilitate the reconnection of youth with a family member - a cousin, a sibling, a parent, an uncle or aunt, or a grandparent.
The Family and Natural Supports team supports young people and their families by facilitating the process of reconnection, offering counselling, and continuously working with the young person to help them achieve their goals. This is currently a support service offered to participants in the Momma Moments and RallyForward programs at CFY.
Over the past year, the Family and Natural Supports team:
SUPPORTED
29
YOUNG PEOPLE AND
THEIR FAMILIES
108
FACILITATED
COUNSELLING
SESSIONS
227
PROVIDED
FAMILY-FOCUSED
INTERVENTIONS
momma moments
The Momma Moments Program is a peer-to-peer support and strengths-based group for young parents or pregnant mothers. It provides moms and their children with wrap-around support to navigate the challenges of motherhood, which they often face in addition to social isolation, financial demands, and limited social and family support.
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Momma Moments currently operates in St. John's and Conception Bay South, where groups meet once a week for programming that emphasizes overall wellness - mental, physical, spiritual, and social - for both mother and child. Young mothers have access to healthy recreational activities, as well as resources and discussions on topics of family building, income supports, mental health, education, nutrition, and more.
In addition, staff act as advocates for their well-being and that of their children, and volunteers provide child minding services, and staff and volunteers of Momma Moments prepare meals for moms and kids - with extra to take home.
Over the past year, the Momma Moments program:
84
SUPPORTED
MOMS
128
SUPPORTED
CHILDREN
1,109
SERVED
MEALS
2,922
PROVIDED
FAMILY SUPPORT ACTIONS
The young mothers and kids in this program work hard to overcome challenges and build brighter futures. By combining healthy interventions for the mom, and taking a prevention approach with the kids, this program ambitiously works towards delivering intergenerational change by breaking cycles of poverty and homelessness.
Some Momma Moments highlights:
