Special COVID-19 Interview: Mel Shenstone, Boundary Family Services

Photo by Jerry Wang on Unsplash

In an interview with Mel Shenstone, CAPC Facilitator and Lil’ Explorers Facilitator at Boundary Family Services in Grand Forks, we discussed the use of Facebook, Zoom and video posting to help families stay active together in the outdoors during the current restrictions on community gatherings.

The CAPC Parents with Young Children program is one of a number of family programs at Boundary Family Services which support families in the Grand Forks area. When in-person gatherings had to close down, Mel started on maintaining the group by using their Facebook page as a contact point for participants.

Mel wanted to be able to find a way for the group to continue meeting. It took a while to get a version of Zoom that met the agency’s privacy regulations, but the first Zoom group was up and running in April. Participants sign a consent form and then can join the group which meets every Tuesday afternoon. The IDP support joins in every week for this session, as well as the CPNP group.

Mel has been getting service partners to join in. Guests for the Zoom meetings have included: the Aboriginal IDP; the sleep consultant; a CPNP partner who came it to talk about weaning; a library consultant who gave tips on how to read with your child; and Sean Larson, a clinician who works for MCFD Child and Youth mental Health, who talked about parenting children in a pandemic (what they are feeling, what is going on in their brain, and information for parents on how to stay calm).

Discovery College in Kelowna is running a free course on coping with stress and anxiety under the current unusual circumstances. Mel took the webinar and then shared the information with her Zoom group and led a discussion with the group.

One particular point from the webinar that they discussed was the difference between self-care and self-soothing. Self-care should involve work and leads to a sense of satisfaction afterward: such as going for a walk; organizing things; folding laundry. Self-soothing activities are things like having a drink or watching television. The point made in the webinar was that self-soothing is absolutely fine, unless it becomes part of your day every day and starts to stop a person from doing the things that give a sense of accomplishment.

Another key point from the webinar the group talked about was around celebration and how important it is to celebrate the simple everyday things in life during periods of increased stress: things like getting up at a regular time, washing and getting dressed, brushing your teeth, having breakfast. Also, about giving yourself grace when you haven’t accomplished everything you wanted in a day.

Mel got the format for the Zoom meetings from her child’s grade one teacher, and it has been working well. Everyone is on mike and has a chance to say, “Hi”, at the beginning of the session. When it is time for the presentation, Mel, as host, mutes all the participants, who put a hand up to take turns in the discussion. At the end of the presentation, Mel unmutes the participants again for final community connections and thank you to the presenter.

Mel has had good luck finding presenters for the Zoom meetings. They are often initially nervous about presenting in a new format, but have found they have enjoyed it, and it offers opportunity to keep families connected with the wider community and to let people know that services are still accessible.

For those who have challenges accessing through Zoom, they have been operating a group using Facebook and telephone conference call.

During this exceptional time, Mel has been partnering with CPNP outreach to support families with young children in the community. Initially they went back through their lists for the past three years to make contact with families. The list was extensive and a lot for the two existing staff. They reached out to the agency manager and PHAC consultant, who provided approval and selected families who were outside the CPNP one-year range for Mel to contact, as outreach would normally be outside her regular scope of work. The outreach work has been well received by the families Mel has contacted. Through the phone calls, she has been able to offer Farmers Market and grocery vouchers, info and links, as well as supportive enquiry about mental health and practical issues. As she made contact with each family, she offered a range of contact schedules to participants (weekly/bi-weekly/monthly). Many parents have felt very isolated and have expressed that they really like having an adult voice to speak with. It was a long process to initiate, as Mel has only been able to give one day a week to this work, but she has worked her way through her list and it is going well.

Another project that Mel was able to get started early during the isolation period was the creation of “Social Distancing Survival Boxes”. She created and included a booklet with outdoor projects, crafts and recipes, including recipes for glue, playdough and modeling clay made from common kitchen ingredients. The boxes included crafting supplies, corn starch and baking soda. Families could come and pick these up from the agency. She has received feedback that families have really enjoyed this resource. Mel commented that it took a lot of hours to produce the booklet, but she is very happy with the outcome of the project!

Under normal circumstances, Mel runs a group for families called Lil’ Explorers, a weekly group that involves getting outside in all weathers. During isolation, Mel has been using the group Facebook page to post daily challenges (over 50 so far) designed to encourage families to go outside whatever the weather! Mel is happy for other groups to use her materials. A local school has contacted her about adding her page to their learning hub as a choice for families for their home-based learning. The Lil’ Explorers Facebook page can be found here.

Mel started creating this resource at the beginning of April and there has been very mixed weather since then. She started with live feed video, but is now posting videos of herself demonstrating the ideas, or posting a pdf activity sheet.

Mel comments that it has been interesting doing this on social media, which has meant she has been connecting beyond her participant families to the wider community. The link has been passed on and other community members have been using the materials, with responses such as, “It has reminded me of the value of going outside!” When we spoke in early June, she had 160 followers and is very pleased to be reaching families who otherwise might not be going outside with their children.

Using Facebook means families who are hard to reach, whom the programs would like to reach but who don’t like groups, are connecting via social media. Mel notes that anonymity reduces social pressure. Nevertheless, she says it does feel a bit strange. When she posts, she doesn’t have any idea whether anyone is using any of the ideas until she gets feedback. She very much misses being together with the participants in her programs. In person, you see the joy on children’s faces and are aware that you are often opening up a new world to parents.

Now that she has developed experience in creating the daily challenges, Mel says it takes her about a half hour per day to create the video or posting. She films the video using the phone, then downloads the video onto her computer and loads it to Facebook. The videos are 3-5 minutes long. She tries to keep the process simple and do the video in one take. She focuses on keeping the ideas very simple and low cost, using supplies that you can find in nature or that families are likely to have at home in their kitchen. She posts every day (including weekends) so that families can have one thing that they don’t have think about. She is keenly aware of how hard it can be for families to come up with new activities every day with their kids, especially for families who have other stresses to deal with in their lives.

The posts are designed to work for multiple ages. Parents can ask more “Why?” and “How do think…?” questions for older kids. Having the resources housed on a Facebook page means that all the posts can be seen and families can choose whichever ones they want, creating a simple, accessible library of activities.