Laura Wellmann and Barb Forster from Canmore FCSS joined me on the show to talk about a support group to help parents navigate the world of COVID-19:

 

Rob: Why are you organizing this?

Laura: It’s come to our attention that this is a really challenging time for parents. Being a parent myself, I know that there are a lot of complexities added to our plate right now with homeschooling trying to support our kids with physically distancing and yet still having social interaction.

Parents are also under stressors placed on our family units, like parent isolation and working from home. So we felt that it was really important to reach out and to see if this was something that parents would be interested in. And I think Barb can speak to a bit of the history of the parent support group.

Barb: Back in 2017, FCSS was approached by a number of parents asking for some support around parenting teenagers. It was based on trying to help parents not feel so alone to stay current with the kinds of things that are going on, particularly around these days with vaping being introduced to substance abuse and the legalization of cannabis.

It’s been happening for three years now with a small group of parents who are finding some support within each other, maybe different ways to do things. Validation of the things that they’re doing and just being able to laugh a little bit about some of the challenges and get some perspective. In this time of COVID, a lot of those issues are being magnified. So Laura and I put our heads together and decided that it might be something to open up to other parents as well and try and provide the support that’s needed.

Rob: How’s this going to work? Is there going to be a program? Is it going to be more of an open discussion?

Laura: The great thing about parent support groups is that the group actually gets to decide on the topics of interest, and then we collectively create the agenda.

Rob: This is running May 7th and June 4th, 7:00 – 8:00. I’m assuming this is all going to be online as pretty much everything is these days.

Laura: It will be via zoom link. We are asking interested participants to call Canmore FCSS at 403-609-3743 or you can email us at fcssadmin@canmore.ca. And if their parents out there that are feeling like I could really benefit from some support or reaching out and talking to someone, but a group just doesn’t feel right for me, please still contact us. We can certainly connect one-on-one and we can also provide information and referral to other supports in our community.

Filed under: Canmore, covid-19, parenting