Growing Families Society – 23 years of service

By Janet Kanters Times Editor

Growing Families Society is celebrating 23 years of service in Strathmore and Wheatland County. The group presented a summary of their various programs at Strathmore town council on Feb. 6.
According to Margo Sevcik with Growing Families Society, the group’s mission is to “promote, support, and advocate for healthy lifestyles within our communities to enhance the unity of the family structure so all families can reach their full potential.”
Growing Families Society is comprised of three main programs: Growing Opportunities, Bridging the Gap and 5 for Life.
Growing opportunities is an in-home visitation program to provide support to at-risk pregnant women.
“We employ a nurse, a support worker and a life skills coach. Women under the age of 19 are automatically accepted into the program; over that age if they have two of our 13 risk factors then they are accepted into the program,” said Sevcik, who added that the program serves a total of 350 moms.
“The funds we received from you for 2018 was directed towards our life skills portion of the growing opportunities program. We helped 18 clients over a 12-month period based on a one-day a week program. We build trust, we educate, support and teach coping strategies for these new moms. Your money was invested to give Strathmore’s newest residents the best start possible.”
Bridging the Gap engages adults 55 years and older to volunteer their life skills, knowledge and experience back into the community with program development that supports social participation and inclusion for seniors.
“Your funds here helped enable 19 community lunch club sessions, 15 meet-and-greet parent and tot sessions, and a downsizing and decluttering session during senior’s week,” noted Sevcik. “We hosted five Bridging the Gap health interagency meetings; we hosted a kickin’ it old school intergenerational event with 5 for Life; and seven sessions of name that tune.”
Sevcik said the Bridging the Gap website manages volunteer opportunities, lists resources and has a calendar of events.
“Bridging the gap is an active partner in senior power, seniors’ week, volunteer recognition, the seniors resource handbook, caregiver support committee and the women’s conference,” she added.
5 for Life is a program that focuses on children ages zero to five years, providing and developing programs to support early childhood development in Strathmore and Wheatland County.
“The most recent early development instrument results for our area released in 2018 indicate that many children who are entering kindergarten are struggling. Based on our results there is a need to improve upon social competence and emotional maturity in children under the age of six, as 26 per cent of the children in our area have difficulty or great difficulty in these developmental areas,” said Sevcik. “We also need to improve communication skills and general knowledge skills, as 31 percent of our children are having difficulties. These children have difficulty in communicating their needs and wants in a socially appropriate way, telling stories and lack of general knowledge about the outside world.”
Sevcik said funds are used to help various programs, including an early childhood resource handbook; partnering with a postpartum support group to host a community approach to healthy children workshop; a community book sale in January; books for babes at Brentwood School; various free family swim and gymnastic sessions; Mother Goose in the park; and a national child’s day event, among other things.
Sevcik noted that volunteers play a huge role in the success of Growing Families Society.
“Our total volunteer hours for all our programs comes to just over 2,300 hours,” she said. “That is the equivalent of having a staff member work 44.3 hours a week.”
Growing Families Society is hosting its fourth annual family carnival and fundraiser on April 12 at the Strathmore Civic Centre. The event, which goes from 5 to 8 p.m. includes a pancake supper by the Cheadle Lions. Cost is $25 per family.