Strengthening Families for the Future and the future is now!

Strengthening Families for the Future (SFF) is a family change program designed to reduce factors that put families at risk, and enhance factors that can help families to function well. Built around a family meal, the program uses role play and other fun, interactive activities to promote problem solving and communication skills – all of which improve parent and child relationships. SFF is an innovative and Best Practices program that is making its way to CAMH’s College Street site this fall.

Every session of Strengthening Families begins with a family meal – a time to talk, share and spend positive time together.

“One of the unique features of Strengthening Families is that it involves the whole family and not just the children, and its focus specifically on families whose parents have a history of substance abuse or mental health issues,” says Barbara Steep, CAMH Provincial Services Consultant.

“It’s really an effective primary prevention program for any family,” she adds. The SFF program helps families to improve family relationships, communication skills, anger management, problem solving skills and other areas of family functioning. By building these skills, the program reduces children’s risks of using alcohol and other drugs, decreases behaviour issues, builds their resilience and life skills, and increases positive and effective parenting.

“We’ve had a great deal of success with Strengthening Families across Ontario through partnerships with community agencies, and we’re pleased to host the program in Toronto, here at CAMH, where the local community can easily access it,” Barbara says.

Siblings show off their family shield in which their family tree, values, promises and traditions are depicted.

SFF also serves to integrate CAMH’s expertise, services and client groups with the communities that surround and support us. Partners for the October session include Toronto Public Health and The Child Development Institute, as well as CAMH’s Women’s Program and Family Addictions Service.

“This type of community-focused integration is a great example of how we create connections with the communities we serve,” says Christie Collins-Williams, CAMH Manager of Health Promotion. “It’s an important part of our identity as a health-promoting hospital.”

Strengthening Families for the Future consists of three hours each evening for 14 weeks. Hour one is the family meal, Hour two is the parent program and child program (families split up and go off to appropriate program) and the final hour when everyone comes back together to share what they’ve learned.

Graduating families of Strengthening Families gather for a group photo.

The sessions are fun and involve children and parents in activities like building towers out of drinking straws, making hand puppets, role-playing and creating a collage that depicts the many different types of families there are. Following the facilitated sessions, parents and children have an opportunity to put their newly acquired skills to practice in every session and during the week at home.

Strengthening Families is a powerful family change program because it involves the whole family, not just the parents or the children alone.

Parents and children complete a number of fun activities in the Family program. Here, a child and his mother cut pictures from magazines for a poster that depicts some of the things their family values most.

Parents and children enjoy the program citing the opportunity to learn new information and skills as well as to spend time together as a family. A recent graduate of the program commented: “Strengthening Families for the Future was extremely informative for all of us and we enjoyed the extra family time together and meeting other families. My children had a lot of fun at the sessions and since coming to the program we are all getting along better together.”

This free program includes dinner and child care and begins October 19 and runs every Monday for 14 weeks from 5:00-8:00 pm. To register contact:Robyn_Beron@camh.net at 416 535-8501, ext. 7097 or Katie_Davidman@camh.net at ext. 4357.

 

 

 

 

 

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