Program

The mission statement

Kids Kottage helps ensure children are safe and receive the parenting they deserve by:

• Caring for them when their families are in crisis or in need of respite, and
• By supporting their parents with advice and education as they work towards their potential.

Children can become vulnerable to abuse and neglect when their parents are consumed by crisis and distress in their lives. Kids Kottage provides care for the children in a safe, warm, loving environment. Trained staff and volunteers tend to the physical and emotional needs of the children during their stay of up to 72 hours. Toys and play experiences are especially chosen for the children that meet their individual and developmental needs.

Any circumstance or situation with which a parent cannot cope comprises a crisis. The crises we see at Kids Kottage often evolve out of poverty issues including loss of employment, inadequate housing, lack of food, terminated utilities, or the need for milk and diapers. Inordinate high stress levels that result. Some parents desperately need help to keep their children safe from real or threatened violence. Some struggle daily with debilitating mental health issues or physical illness.

At Kids Kottage we know that "ASKING FOR HELP IS A SIGN OF STRENGTH" and we have pledged ourselves to help parents build on this strength to find viable solutions to their problems, and to help them keep their children safe. Parents identify their own need for help and call the 24-hr. crisis line: 944-2888.

CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT CAN BE PREVENTED!

The immediate crisis past, Kids Kottage maintains a relationship with the families they serve. Follow-up workers provide help and support to the families in their own homes following the discharge of their children and assist them to address root issues and develop long term solutions that result in the family's health and well-being.

Education

Stress is a part of all of our daily lives. Stress is not in and of itself a bad thing; in fact, when human beings react to stress by correctly identifying problems, gathering information, and implementing sound problem solving techniques stress can be credited with motivating the human body toward equilibrium.

But when stress is long term and unremitting, and when a solution cannot be found and the body's equilibrium is not restored stress has a debilitating and damaging effect on the body.

Stress, as it is described above, can be the culprit in cases of child abuse and neglect. Stress levels can become so high that fear and anger take over. Parents neglect to meet their children's needs, or tragically children become the victims of abuse.

Many different kinds of crisis cause stress. We all experience crisis. The key is to get help before abuse and neglect take place.

There is help. Kids Kottage wants to help. If you are in trouble, on the edge, do not know where to turn, phone 944-2888 now! Share your circumstances completely and honestly with the staff person who answers the phone. Work with the worker over the phone to gain direction for developing a solution and a plan of how to reach that solution, be it accessing community resources of which you were unaware, or admitting your little one/s to Kids Kottage. Through the Kottage you will have access to an in-home support worker and support groups. Always remember:

ASKING FOR HELP IS A SIGN OF STRENGTH!

Kids Kottage wants to help families who find themselves unable to cope with crisis situations in their lives.

We can help by offering an "understanding ear and heart", by making you aware of resources in your community where you can access information and help and we can care for your children when necessary for up to 72 hours to allow you time to work on the issues of the crisis and make your child's home safe and nurturing again. After your children's discharge from the Kottage, the staff and Follow-up workers can continue to support you to choose and implement the best solutions for your children and family.

That's what Kids Kottage can do.

What can you do?

You can use the help of Kids Kottage effectively:

Be sure to work with the worker over the phone to identify and find a suitable solution to the problem. Once on the phone, it is easy to feel like the solution to the problem is to "get space" for the children at the Kottage, rather than use the worker's help to think of solutions to the problem for which you called.

It is important to discuss with the worker the solutions you have already thought of and those strategies you have tried previously. Perhaps with some more discussion, one of those solutions will work.

Look first for solutions that do not involve having the children away from you, and if they must spend time away, make the time as short as possible.

Know what it is that you must accomplish in order to solve the problem. Make a plan with the Intake Worker about how you will meet the goals of your plan and together with the worker, decide how long it will take you to complete the goals.

When you come to take your children home be prepared to spend some time with the Intake Worker to discuss how well you managed the steps in your solution plan, how effective the plan was, what would have made the plan more effective, and what you could have done differently to be more successful.

Once the crisis is over and you and your children are together again at home, you can assist Kids Kottage to continue to help you by participating in the follow-up program. A Follow-up Worker will contact you by phone and set up visits in your home so you can work on the deep issues that cause recurring crisis in your life. The Follow-up Worker is a source of ongoing support. Through Follow-up you can learn of resources available in the community that you may want to access, and have someone to hear you set goals and support you to achieve them. The long term goal, of course, is a healthy family.

• The availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food
  
• The access or capacity to acquire nutritionally safe and adequate food
  (World Food Summit 1996)

In our experience intermittent food insecurity is the result of varying degrees of poverty experienced by our clients.

• Some families simply cannot apportion enough of their meagre incomes to buy adequate or nutritional food for their children.
• Many families pay most of their income in rent just to keep a roof over their family's heads, leaving little with which to buy food.
• Many parents feel forced due to daily exhaustion and depression to shop in stores that are close even though prices are higher, or give in to their children's demand for fast food to prevent whining and other behaviors with which they are too tired to cope.
• Some parents feel overwhelmed by their many problems and simply lack the energy or creativity to solve the problem of food security for their families

When families cannot afford to buy nutritious food a crisis of food insecurity ensues.
Kids Kottage can help in the time of emergency by providing children meals and snacks while they stay at Kids Kottage.

And

Help to prevent ongoing food insecurity by implementing the

A program of skill building and much more

The program is comprised of 12 weekly workshops for small groups of attendees. Great effort is made to remove or mitigate as many barriers as possible and to provide tools for success for those who attend:

• A facilitator is provided
• Child care is provided on site
• A 'basic shelf' food hamper is provided that contains basic cooking ingredients, most of which can be kept for a long time without refrigeration. (one basic shelf costs approximately $300.00).
• The Basic Shelf Cookbook is especially designed to utilize the basic shelf of ingredients, to help people shop for food, store food and cook with a limited amount of money.
  The Basic Shelf Cookbook updated 2004

The program lends itself easily to helping participants budget and develop a shopping list. Whenever participants use an item from their basic shelf they can place that item on their grocery list.

The small groups allow for friendship building and an outcome of decrease in isolation.

Parents build confidence and skill to provide nutritious meals for their children and their self-esteem increases. An added outcome is that of independence. Participants are less reliant on the food bank or the crisis nursery during times of limited income for food.

The cookbook recipes require limited energy and "fussing". This is helpful for those parents who suffer exhaustion or poverty of spirit. The "basic shelf" of ingredients is a basic tool that would be cost prohibitive for families on very low incomes.

What the Participants say:

I Know what basic ingredients are

I made my first Christmas dinner. My family was so proud of me. I have confidence now.

I learned how to cook different things. I learned to cook from scratch!