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Supporting parents through the journey of raising children

Last January, the Gay Lea Foundation awarded a $10,000 grant to the Peel Family Education Centre (FEC) to support the expansion of its Parenting in Partnership Program, an ongoing series of workshops, courses and meet-ups that address targeted parenting concerns or topics.

Since 1974, the FEC has served thousands of parents with programs to build stronger families through parent-to-parent education, support and training.

The Parenting in Partnership Program began to offer on-site parent information and support at two Brampton schools on select days, before and after school, in the fall of 2018. Since transportation and access to childcare can be a barrier to parents accessing FEC services, it was proposed to take the model further into the community.

With the Gay Lea Foundation grant, FEC expanded the Parenting in Partnership Program into local community centres, libraries and settlement agencies in the Mississauga area in the hopes of reaching a larger new immigrant population and offering practical parenting information. In 2019, FEC was able to provide the following programming:

  • Meet-Up Sites – Three meet-up sites were run monthly with drop-in programs for parents.
  • Parent Liaison Programs – A Parent Educator liaised with parents in two pre-existing programs.
  • Workshop Series – FEC held a series of eight different parenting workshops that each ran for four weeks.
  • Individual Workshops – FEC facilitated 12 two-hour sessions, each covering a relevant parenting topic.
  • Eight-Week Courses – FEC held 12 eight-week courses. Each course focused on the same topic (e.g. How to communicate effectively with your children) for the eight weeks, with new material covered and new skills acquired each week.

“The grant truly helped us make a difference in the lives of parents and children in our community,” says Lynn Hand, Executive Director of the Family Education Centre. “At FEC our overall goal is to provide parents with the support they need in order to raise responsible, caring and resilient children. We would not have been able to reach 359 parents without your support.”

“The facilitator did not judge me for my parenting mistakes and I felt welcomed,” says a program participant. “I love that she [the facilitator] was a parent too; no book gets the frustrations like another parent does.”

 

About Peel Family Education Centre

The Peel Family Education Centre (FEC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to parents and children, and to building stronger families through community-based parent-to-parent education, support and training.


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