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WILDWOOD – Providing support and guidance to families is challenging, and even more so when one of the family members is serving in the military. Cape Assist offers families essential support through its Military Strengthening Families Program.
Military families frequently display remarkable resilience in the face of significant challenges. Deployment and parental separation are significant stressors for parents, particularly those with infants and young children. The program helps participants improve their family dynamics in several areas, including communication, discipline strategies, and limit setting.
The most recent Military Strengthening Families Program session started in early March. The 14-session program provides evidence-based training on parenting skills, children’s social skills, and family life skills. Parents and children participate both separately and together during the program.
Not long into the session, COVID-19 restrictions prevented the meetings from occurring in person. Understanding that the training would be needed more than ever during the state stay-at-home order, Cape Assist transitioned its program online with Zoom.
“Taking a program designed for the classroom to an online platform wasn’t something we expected to do, initially,” said Prevention Director Joe Faldetta. “Everyone is under an enormous amount of stress right now because of COVID-19, but there’s an added complexity with these families and we knew we couldn’t cancel the program without potentially harming the newly established dynamics.”
Cape Assist provided each of the 20 participating families with the resources they would need to complete the program. The staff filled bags with a $300 Visa gift card, crafts and the program lessons, and delivered them to the families’ homes last week.
A hallmark of the program is the emphasis on having “family meals.” Having dinner as a family decreases the likelihood of substance abuse in youth and increases family communication.
During the in-person meetings, meals were provided. Cape Assist wanted that skill to continue and further reinforce their importance so they provided the $300 gift cards to be used for food for those meals.
The free program is open to all families with members who are serving or have served in any of the military branches. Each family who completes the program receives a $200 gift card.
“Human services as a whole are direly needed right now,” stated executive director Katie Faldetta. “Cape Assist has maintained consistent contact with our clients during the epidemic. This is when they are the most vulnerable and need the most support. We ramped up our efforts to maintain ongoing calls, video chats, and emails with everyone.”
To learn more about the Military Strengthening Families Program or to register for the next session, please call 609-522-5960.
