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Get plugged into the latest Be Strong Families news, initiatives, and blog articles — all central to creating transformative conversations that nurture the spirit of family, promote well-being and prevent violence.
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New Protective Factors Resource for Children and the Adults Who Love Them
Be Strong Families is publishing an exciting new resource to assist parents with building Protective Factors with their children and in their families: it’s a coloring and activity book. It’s part of our Living the Protective Factors series — in it 5 children from very diverse cultural backgrounds navigate a week in their life building Protective Factors as they go…
Parent Café Evaluation Highlights
Since Be Strong Families (BSF) first pioneered the Parent Café approach in 2007, hundreds of programs In the US and internationally have adopted the approach, reaching thousands of parents and families through deep, personal conversations designed to facilitate transformation and healing. In 2019 we started the National Parent Café Evaluation Project to be able to share the impact of Parent Cafés. Fifty-five percent of our partners participated in the National Parent Café Project. The following are key trends in data collected in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Why Parent Cafés? Spotlight on Help Me Grow and Goal Concordant Care
How and why do organizations that serve families use Parent Cafés as a strategy for parent engagement? Often, it’s to create a solid foundation of partnership between staff and parents and among the parents in a program to advance other programmatic initiatives. In 2022, Be Strong Families joined…
Affirmation Reflection: Stay Open and Curious
I’m a big fan of affirming oneself; I believe that when we stand in our own truth, we unmask our inner greatness, our inner strength and our hidden gifts and potential. Recently, while reviewing the Be Strong Families Living the Protective Factors Affirmation Deck, I came across an affirmation card that spoke to me; it said, “Stay Open and Curious — When fear threatens, I concentrate on seeing more options and waiting for more possibilities to emerge.” It really made me reflect on the past few years, what I’ve learned and how I’ve changed.
On Resilience
On November 8, 2018, I woke to my husband standing over our bed informing me that there had been a mass shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill, a popular Country-Western nightclub in Thousand Oaks, CA. We had visited Borderline several times, once to celebrate my birthday in June, and most recently to see Rita Wilson perform there late September.
In recent years, about one-in-two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic cut off so many of us from friends, loved ones, and support systems, exacerbating loneliness and isolation.