Paul Szmal: Time for our monthly visit with our friends from Child and Family Resources and this time around we welcome Trisha Leisner in to have a conversation this morning. Trisha, good morning. How are you?
Trisha Leisner: Good morning, Paul. I'm good. How are you?
Paul Szmal: Good. We want to talk today about the Family Connections Circle, which is kind of a community project. Trisha, can you tell us a little bit about what this is all about?
Trisha Leisner: Sure. I work with a division of CFR called Healthy Families and we provide home visits, but we are also starting a new outreach to the community that I'm really excited about and it's the Family Connections Circle we provide in Yates County. We have a connection circle the second and fourth Wednesday of every month at the library and we also offer a virtual option for families that have difficulty getting out. The main goal is peer support, so we want families and caregivers to be able to have time to get together, meet each other, ask questions, vent, share successes. Sometimes we do crafts, sometimes we talk about specific topics, but mostly we want everyone to be able to share what's going on with them.
Paul Szmal: And how important is that sharing amongst peers?
Trisha Leisner: It is vital. There are study after study that shows that for parents and for caregivers, isolation is a very big factor in difficulties with parenting, especially now post-COVID with everybody being so busy and people just feel isolated. So the opportunity to see other parents understand that everyone is going through some of the same struggles, it just helps people not feel so alone.
Paul Szmal: And who facilitates this? Is this done via a grant or is this out of the operating budget of Child and Family Resources?
Trisha Leisner: This is out of the operating budget of Healthy Families, which is under Child and Family Resources. We have a grant to start these programs in different communities and that grant goes through this year. So hopefully we'll see things get off the ground so that we can continue.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Tricia Leisner this morning on FLX Morning. We're talking about the Family Connection Circle, which is a peer support group that's part of the Healthy Families offshoot of Child and Family Resources. And by the way, if you're looking for information on some of what we're talking about, you can find it on the website at cfresources.org, cfresources.org. Now, we talked about the Family Connection Circle meetings in Pen Yen. Those are at the Public Library, second to fourth Wednesday of the month at 11 a.m. But there's also meetings for Seneca and Ontario County and there's even a virtual component too.
Trisha Leisner: That's correct. And we also have bilingual support, so we have the option of providing support for families that speak Spanish primarily, as well as English. Seneca County, by the way, is scheduled to meet the first and third Thursdays at the Seneca Falls Library at 11. Ontario County is at the Geneva Public Library first and third Tuesdays starting starting at 11. And the virtual program is the second and fourth Tuesdays. That's at six o'clock in the evening for those of you that are busy during the course of the day.
Paul Szmal: So, this is targeted primarily to parents, caregivers of infants, and small children. Have we actually gotten started with the events and meetings in Pen Yen? And if so, what are some of the things that are topics of conversation?
Trisha Leisner: We have. At the library, we've been meeting now for a month and we've had several families joining us, all the way from pregnant moms up through parents and caregivers of toddlers. We've got dads and grandparents that also join us, which is wonderful. And some topics, let's see, the last time we talked about difficulties with tantrums and how you deal with your young child throwing a tantrum in public. And parents and caregivers talked about how that feels. And then we talked about some strategies for dealing with that.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I can remember being a kid and seeing other kids having tantrums out in public, like when I was out at the mall and stuff. And yeah, that's a difficult situation to be in when you're a parent or a caregiver.
Trisha Leisner: Sure. Of course, it was never you, the child, who was starting to.
Paul Szmal: Exactly right. Exactly right. Yes. Yes. I'm sure some of the other topics that are going to come up as we continue with these programs will be things like, you know, affordability, expenses for child care, things of that nature.
Trisha Leisner: Sure. And also sharing resources is something that we hope parents will and caregivers will be able to do. Resources for child care, which is a big difficulty in all of our region, but especially in Yates County and Seneca County, there's a deficit. And so to be able to share those resources, other parenting resources, just to really connect the community into all the different things that are available to them.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that's the nice thing about organizations that put together these types of things like Child and Family Resources is, yeah, it's you could just easily have a group of parents sitting down for coffee and having a gripe session about things. But there are actual resources and solutions that are offered not only by the organization, but by other parents and caregivers as well.
Trisha Leisner: Exactly. Yeah. It's an opportunity for everyone to share from their own expertise.
Paul Szmal: What's the long-term outlook for this program? I mean, what would be the ideal goal?
Trisha Leisner: The goal is to provide, well, primarily to provide the space and the hope would be that we would have a long-term participants who get to know each other and can form relationships that are long-lasting and a support to each other. Another goal would be to be able to expand into some other towns and areas, provide this kind of more in different local spots. I do want to mention, too, that not only is this program completely free, but there's not even any registration required. You can just show up.
Paul Szmal: Correct. The only one that requires a pre-registration is the virtual, and that's really only so that I can get the link into the caregiver's hands. I also want to say that children are welcome, too. It's not just for parents and caregivers. Please bring your babies and your kids along. We usually do some kind of a craft together. We talk about how you can make one activity work across several age ranges. So if you have more than one child, how you can make one activity work for both of them or all three of them or however many you have.
Trisha Leisner: Yeah, that's a handy tool right there for sure.
Paul Szmal: Yes, it's very helpful. So again, let's recap where these events are taking place. It's Family Connection Circle events. First off, Yates County is at the Pen Yen Public Library. That's the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month. Seneca County is at the Seneca Falls Library, first and third Thursdays of the month. And then Ontario County is at the Geneva Public Library, first and third Tuesdays of the month. All three of those start at 11 a.m. and run roughly till about 12 or 12.30. And then if you're looking for the virtual link, you can call this number 315-569-2998 to get more information. 315-569-2998. And the virtual programs run the second and fourth Tuesdays at six o'clock in the evening. So that's the Family Connection Circle program, again through the Child and Family Resources organization here in the Finger Lakes. Tricia, I appreciate you filling us in on this and I hope that you get to the point where you've got multiples of these going on and they're all full.
Trisha Leisner: Of course. Thank you so much for the time, Paul.
