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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.
Since our last Revitalizer on November 16, we welcomed three new staff Morgan Harvey as Training Program Assistant, Christina Wolken as the IDCFS YAB Administrative Lead, Amanda Ramirez as Marketing Associate, and two new board members Andreé Long and Stephanie Ceja.
Trauma, especially trauma that is experienced in early childhood, can have a significant and lasting impact on an individual's emotional, cognitive, and social development. It can disrupt the natural progression of attachment, self-concept, and understanding of the world and interpersonal dynamics. As a result, this can set unhealthy patterns of relationships…
The main goal of mental health services is to help individuals achieve better mental and emotional well-being. If you bracket for a moment the assumption that all such services need to be provided by licensed professionals according to a medical model including diagnosis and treatment including medication (which are not necessarily super effective in many cases), Cafés do many of the things that therapeutic mental health services do — and for some people they even work better than conventional, evidence-based interventions. They can also be catalysts and gateways to accessing professional mental health services.
Our services help people to help themselves by building their sense of efficacy (you can do it), finding their voice, strengthening their support systems and community, developing social and emotional skills, opening up to help and to learning — with and from each other.
Are you part of a robust Parent Café effort with a dynamic team of parents leading the Cafés and seats filled regularly? Is funding for your effort slated to expire? Be Strong Families would like to assist with ensuring that your Café effort continues to thrive. We want to be your partner in sustaining Cafés and will be available to collaborate on fundraising activities, evaluation efforts, and promotion. Let us know what you need…
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Celebrating our Strengths and Building Equity Leadership
Be Strong Families staff and board came together for an in-person retreat October 19 and 20 in Lake County, IL. This is the first in-person staff-board retreat we have held in more than 6 years. The theme was “Be Strong Together: Celebrating our Strengths and Building Equity Leadership.”
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.