“Already We’re Seeing a Huge Difference!”

About a year ago Elisia, Parenting Education Manager with New Life Family Services, contacted us. She asked if we could partner with them to train their staff on our Parenting Framework. In her words:

We work every day in our ministry with young parents in tough places, and over the past couple years we’ve been working to do more to help them be better parents. So when we caught wind of the Connected Families approach to parenting, we were hooked. It is so simple but deep. So biblical but so practical. And so memorable. Just what the parents we serve need!

We enlisted the Connected Families team to help us reshape our curriculum and train our coaches to integrate the Connected Families framework into our parenting curriculum with the hope that some of our participants will become coaches someday. We’ve only gotten started, but already we’re seeing a huge difference!

Becky is one of their lead Spanish-speaking parent coaches and tells us:

The Connected Families approach gives me an anchoring perspective for my coaching with the Latino population we serve because of how wonderfully the ideas cross into that culture. I use the framework to show parents how things can get upside down, and how to get things back on track. I’ve learned to put far more focus on what’s going right – which has been a huge encouragement to the discouraged parents I serve. I’m so grateful for our partnership with Connected Families and can’t wait to see the project unfold over the next year!  

In Elisia’s personal life, as a mom to a 3-year-old girl, she says:

I find that I ask myself “What’s going ON in ME?” and “What’s going ON in my CHILD?”  countless times a day. It helps me process through my toxic beliefs, emotions, past experiences and expectations that can cloud my ability to provide a foundation of safety, connect with and coach our 3-year-old.

Staying curious and humble by asking “what’s going on in my child?” has helped me dig deeper and respond with empathy to what is really going on rather than just responding to the behavior that she is exhibiting. There have been many times that my pausing to ask this question has resulted in really sweet moments of connection when they could have instead escalated into a power struggle that would have just masked what was really going on inside her.

It’s a joy to partner with ministries like New Life Family Services. We are excited to see the ripple effect of their staff being trained, and then those staff mentoring and training moms and dads in crisis situations. The trajectory of families can be changed forever.

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