Interview: Jen Scott, The Bridge Youth and Family Services
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
We spoke with Jen Scott at The Bridge Youth and Family Services in Kelowna about the adjustments they have made to programs as the pandemic evolved, to deliver using both in-person and online modes in order to meet the needs of a wider range of families in their communities. They have had a very positive response to their hybrid model of program delivery. Under current Omicron virus restrictions in early 2022, the Parent Talk has gone back to virtual and the in-person programs have reduced registration limits. The agency continues to be flexible and responsive to necessary changes to ensure safety for participants and staff, and their website is updated regularly to give the most up-to-date information.
The Bridge Early Years team are now offering their “Creative Playtime” program again in-person on Fridays in Peachland, with a pre-registration system that parents have found easy to use, by sending Jen a text in order to pre-register. For the Friday program, they are able to accommodate up to ten families at a time because they have a big gym space.
The program provides opportunities for children to play, parents to connect, and provides information on community resources. It functions as a social support group and includes a nice lunch. Toys are set out, with mat seating so people can choose how close together to sit. Because they have such a large space with a high ceiling, they are able to include active running around play at times within the session. Masks are required for those over 12.
It was decided to run with no requirement for proof of vaccination, because the families they are serving are amongst the most vulnerable in the community, and the program offers opportunities for 1-1 conversations with individual families where they can talk about their feelings, and receive up-to-date information and support towards making informed choices. The priorities have been information/support/no barriers.
The “Creative Playtime” program also runs on Mondays and Tuesdays, hosted at the Central Okanagan Family Hub, based at Pearson Road Elementary School in Kelowna, with a similar format program, but operating in a smaller space. Booked by pre-registration in the same way, it offers families a weekly opportunity to get out of the house and come in and hang out with other families.
Food security has become a huge concern for a lot of families; many people have lost jobs and food costs are rising sharply. The Bridge Early Years programs run a weekly food security day on Wednesdays, located at the Central Okanagan Family Hub in Kelowna. Local donors provide the food: these include Cobs Breads in Kelowna, the Food Bank and Urban Harvest Organic Fruits and Vegetables. The program is designed as a walk-through pick up. Families can drop in and go through the line of food options to pick up what they need. As well as the basics, there are sometimes options of cheese, eggs, and even diapers. Parents who are pregnant or have infants up to 6 months receive vitamin D and other supplements and a $15 voucher towards buying groceries during the week. Although the current parent-support programming is funded through CAPC, they have continued with these additional supports for pregnant/post-partum mums which had been introduced under previous CPNP funding.
On Fridays, at the Central Okanagan Family Hub, they run “Parent Talk”, again with pre-registration and limited numbers. This is a really popular program, which also includes child minding, so parents get a chance to learn about parenting education topics and have space for general chat, providing both learning opportunities and social support.
The Bridge runs all these programs, which have only been back in-person since the summer. Jen’s colleague, Laura Banman, had been running a parenting program in the park in Kelowna for adults only in the evening, when partners/other caregivers were available to look after the children at home; this program moved back indoors in October. The other Kelowna programs, based at the Central Okanagan Family Hub, went back to in-person in September when school re-opened. The in-person program Peachland started running in October. Up until the summer, all the programs had been running online.
One of the programs offered by The Bridge is an online program which replaced an in-person program due to COVID. This program, called “Tiny to Tot”, has been maintained online, with no intention of reverting to in-person because it has proved to be very, very successful, at meeting a need for families who have challenges or fears about being in-person. Each week is a different topic, either with a guest speaker or facilitated by Jen, so parents can drop in for topics that interest them.
The “Tiny to Tot” program was developed specifically to support mums who had been through the 10-week “Beyond the Blues” Postpartum Support group, which is funded through other sources but run by the Bridge, and promotes recovery from postnatal depression, offering services including social support, community referrals, and psychoeducation. When programs were in person on-location, it was easier to transition families through to in-person programs. The “Tiny to Tot” program has provided a resource for these mums, a natural progression, and peer support and community building. The online format has been preferred, as many of the participants in this program have additional anxiety around COVID exposure in in-person group settings.
Jen also started a What’s App chat to support this program, which has really taken off, with mums supporting each other. Jen monitors the chat to make sure people are receiving accurate, up-to-date information, but she has never had to intervene, other than posting links to information that has been requested. This group has really bonded, planning walks together and meet-ups with their children, and this was a group that didn’t know each other previously and who have built a sense of community entirely online.
Now that the in-person groups are running again, The Bridge have balanced their budgeting to maintain the “Tiny to Tot” program by running the Peachland group one day a week instead of two, so that portion of the CAPC support can be directed to running the “Tiny to Tot” online program.
The Bridge also hosts the Healthy Together at Home online parenting support program, part of which involves cooking recipes together online (see our interview about the Healthy Together at Home program in the May 2021 issue of Keeping in Touch BC). During the summer, Jen was able to arrange for the “Tiny to Tot” program to be visited online by one of the Healthy Together facilitators. For each of the “Tiny to Tot” families who joined in with cooking together online during the session, Jen was able to provide a $10 gift voucher after the session to cover the cost of the ingredients they had used.
Jen says that the past two years have been a professional adventure, using a wide range of skills. When COVID started, Jen had the advantage of previous experience of using Zoom as a member of the Family Resources of BC provincial board, so she was already comfortable with the format. She was able to have the “Beyond the Blues” referral program online by the second week of lockdown, and was was doing circle times online as well. That was what inspired her to then start up the “Tiny to Tot” general-access program. She was able to become a resource for her agency and for others who were starting up online programs.
One thing Jen has kept consistent with her online programs is to start each session with a 3-minute grounding meditation. She explained that when you come to a Zoom at home, straight from other tasks and with your children running around, those couple of minutes of focused breathing really help to settle participants in, ground them, and get them ready to receive information.
The other early years parent support program that is still online is the pregnancy support program, “Special Deliveries”, meeting on Thursdays and facilitated by Laura. Laura had proposed coming back in person in the autumn, but those mums who are pregnant or with newborns were still not ready and prefer the discussion group to stay online for now. The families from this group come in-person on Wednesdays to pick up their groceries, vitamins and vouchers from the food security drop-in.
Using the hybrid model of program delivery has allowed Jen and her team to respond to families’ needs with respect for participants’ comfort levels and to stay flexible if further programming adaptation again becomes necessary in response to new COVID variant breakouts.