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Enlace accomplishes its mission through the work of its Family Center, Information & Referral program, parenting programs, leadership development programs, community organizing efforts, and the promotion of cooperation among community institutions. The Family Center is housed in the middle of the downtown community where families have easy access. At the Center there is a day care center licensed by the Ma. Dept of Early Education and Care for 16 infants and toddlers. All teachers are MA EEC licensed, bi-lingual, and bi-cultural. Community-based organizations, local coalitions, local institutions, and state agencies use the multiple meeting rooms that accommodate meetings, retreats, planning sessions, etc. Within the Family Center, besides the classroom/meeting space, there are administrative offices and a warm and inviting space where families come to seek services, information and referral, and to take advantage of different trainings. Through its Information and Referral program, Enlace acts as a link among service providers in Holyoke, with the aim to better coordinate citywide services allowing more community residents to more easily receive the information and access the resources they need. Enlace is among a very small group of agencies in Holyoke to offer family support activities, and one of few – if not the only – to create parenting programs specifically for fathers. Enlaces Family Support Services aims to help parents become more empowered mothers, fathers, and community members. Enlace offers several classes/curriculum: Parenting Journey, Nurturing Fathers, Parents Empowering Parents, Nurturing Mothers, and a new marriage and parenting ("Ma and Pa") program. For Leadership Development we assist residents in community organizing by informing, educating, and training them how to affect and maneuver the maze of existing and proposed local, state, and national laws and policy. Our trainers implement the training using the People empowering People ( PEP) curriculum. Enlace de Familias parent trainers have over 14 years collectively in training parents. They are trained in 6 different curriculum and are certified trainers by the authors each curriculum. Enlace de Familias believes that a child is best served by having two dedicated, involved parents and a child in a stable environment is likely to do better in school and less likely to engage in risky or anti-social behaviors. For this reason we are proposing trainings that begin with the parent as an individual and gradually introduce the trainings around school related issues to include parents sending their children to school ready to learn, creating supportive home environments for homework and reading time, MCAS etc. Enlace trainers will also include the following topics: Team Work & Discipline - To identify the elements of successful team work and apply them to parenting
- To learn the key techniques for discipline and behavior management through understanding of team sports
- To establish family rules for the whole family
Ages and Stages - Understanding that every child (even though very different) must work and face certain tasks in order to developmentally move ahead
Hitting Fear & Violence - To differentiate between nurturing and non-nurturing parenting practices.
- To identify the intentions and actual outcomes of various parenting practices. To commit to the use of specific nurturing parenting practice that does not represent fear or violence
- To understand the differences between “Power – Over” or Power – to” and how they affect parents live
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