FAMILY AND PARENTING SUPPORT

The idea of providing family and parenting supports goes back over 100 years to the 1800s where, in major metropolitan areas, settlement houses were created for immigrants entering the country to receive supportive services and job training. In the late 1970s the term “Family Supports” emerged to describe various community programs designed to assist families and parents in a wide range of identified need areas.

Milkweed Connections’ Family and Parenting Support services are designed to support families who are seeking harmony in their homes, wanting positive interactions among family members, and desiring various skills to manage day-to-day family life. Milkweed Connections provides supports to families, parents, and children through mentoring, wellness, and skills training.

Mentoring

Offer practical and emotional supports to help families recognize strengths and build from those by setting goals and learning skills
Provide peer mentoring to help families recognize they are not alone in their day-to-day needs and that change can happen
Promote wellness, mindfulness, and harmony for family members and in the home environment
Provide support for and during a family reunification process

Wellness

Teach families the value of being well both as individuals and as a family unit and support them to gain their own personal definition of “wellness”.
Assist families to create and move forward with wellness goals in order to meet current needs.
Promote mindfulness to help family members understand their own unique strengths, abilities, and contributions to the whole family unit.

Skills Training

Help families identify skills and supports needed from their own perspective
Provide alternative and unique parenting skills training to parents to reduce environmental risk factors and improve personal/family resiliency
Support individuals to find joy in their day-to-day life as a family.

Our Family and Parenting Support Specialists are Tricia, Amanda, Dan, Abby, and Shelley