We are excited to tell you about a recent match we’ve made with a t4change winner and a community program.
Mindy will be accompanying Renjie and Nick (co-organizers of the t4change initiative) to a family communication workshop called, The Families and Schools Together Program (FAST).
The FAST program is an innovative and collaborative prevention and parent involvement program for school-aged children 5-8 years old. Children and their families gather and participate in specific, fun, research-based activities designed to strengthen bonds within the family, school and community. Schools, parents and non-profit human service agencies come together to address and prevent major problems that have had a negative impact on families, such as:
- Alcohol and substance abuse
- Juvenile delinquency
- School failure
The FAST program helps children succeed by creating safe and structured opportunities for voluntary involvement in repeated, positive, personal, interactive and communicative bonding experiences. These relationship-building interactions take place at many levels to ensure highly positive outcomes.
The program brings 10-15 families together for eight weekly sessions of carefully structured social activities. These activities include: designing a family flag, research-based family activities, Special Play time and parent networking.
The FAST Program is a locally-run, frontline, community development program that works directly with the families of Kitchener. A team of social workers, settlement workers, child and youth workers, nurses and community representatives come together to operate the program while forming strong relationships with the families that come to the program. Volunteers are very important to overall functioning of the program and ensure that the night’s activities run smoothly.
Nick recently worked for the FAST Program as the Community Partner where he lead the diverse team through the 8 week program and onwards during the post FAST Works Program (an event that takes place once a month to keep the families connected).
“Working for the FAST Program was an amazing experience where I was able to work directly with families to strenghten and build communication and resiliency.”
In an ongoing effort to boost the capacity of the program, Nick invited Renjie to join the team as a volunteer. Renjie immediately jumped into the program and can often be seen holding a new born singing sweet, soothing tunes. A year later, Renjie still refers to the program as “daddy practice”. Renjie’s girlfriend is forever grateful.
We are excited to be working with Mindy on this project that we are very close to. The families will benefit greatly with the warm presence of Mindy and, likewise, Mindy will hopefully find the experience to be very rewarding.
