“The most profound impact of residential school was the

loss of parenting”

Justice Murray Sinclair

Our Clients Include

Parenting Program Overview

Parenting has always been a priority in traditional life. Culture provided the relationships and rituals that ensured our children needs were met physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It is our belief that parenting is the best preventative medicine available in the healing of our communties and that it is the most critical intervention point at which the inter-generational affects of residential school can be healed. Parenting is meant to be intuitive and our instincts, when intact, guide us in responding to the needs of our children. However, many of us have lost our way. We live in a world where we look outside of families and communities in regards to the needs of our children in hopes that experts can provide the answers when in fact families are best equipped to most naturally provide for the needs of children.  Despite more and more interventions by experts our children are not thriving as they are intended to. The trend toward behavior management and medication is turning out a generation of children who know how to behave but have lost the ability to feel.  We must have the hearts of our children before we can open their minds. How do we reclaim our rightful place in the lives or children? How do we become the answer to our children’s emotional needs? These are important questions for which the answers can be found in our own hearts.

Attachment is much more than just physical contact. Being mentally and emotionally attuned to our children is one of the most precious gifts we can give as parents. How do we stay connected to our children, even when physically apart, so they feel shielded and able to thrive? Our relationship with our children has the profound ability to keep our children safe in a world that wounds.

Our programs are rooted in Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s Developmental Attachment Theory (www.neufeldinstitute.com) and provide parents and caregiver’s insight into children and the conditions that help them thrive. Denise Findlay is a First Nations Facilitator, wife and mother of two. Denise belongs to the Squamish Nation and is living and raising her family on reserve in their community. Having had her son diagnosed with learning disabilities at an early age she embarked on a journey to find a better way…. a way that would restore her ability to parent her children. Along the way she re-discovered her own path of healing and ultimately a journey back to her own and her children’s hearts.

We work with parents and foster parents, social workers, teachers and care-givers.

PARENT COACHING:

Denise will work with you one on one to help you gain insight into the child in your care. Utilizing the Neufeld paradigm and focussing on establishing a strong attachment between parent and child Denise will provide you with the support and insight required to become the child’s best bet! Specifically, Denise will…

• Provide context specific support to parents/care-givers using the Neufeld developmental paradigm to make sense of kids.
• Help parents and caregivers find their way in regards to specific child / student challenges.
• Make recommendations to parents and caregivers regarding ways of supporting children at home and in the classroom.
• Consult with parents and caregivers to develop a “whole” child approach in cases where a diagnosis exists, ie. FASD, ADHD….
• Mentor parents and caregivers with children in care.

Want to Learn More?

PARENT WORKSHOPS:

Attachment…Creating A Context for Raising Resilient Children

Attachment is a pre-eminent need that if met allows our children the rest and freedom required to learn and grow. Without attachment our children become very difficult to parent and teach resulting in many behaviors that don’t often make sense ot us.  Never before have we had more access to information and technology on how to parent and teach children and never before have we been so misguided. During this workshop Denise reveals the power a strong attachment gives us as parents and caregivers. As Dr. Neufeld says “attachment is the womb of maturation”. In order to raise kids who can thrive in a world that is wounding we must look beyond popular parenting interventions. Our relationship with the children in our care is the most important determinant in their growth and emergence towards becoming fully human, fully engaged beings with good hearts and good minds. If you are interested in an approach that transcends behavior management techniques and provides concrete answers and insights as to where to begin then this workshops is foundational.

This workshop can be customized to meet the needs of small and large groups and can be delivered in person or online.

We also offer workshops to address the following subjects…

• Attachment, Learning and Development

• Understanding and Responding to Aggression

• Supporting Kids In Care…Restoring the Essential Connection

• The Link Between Residential School, Loss of Attachment  & Family Violence

• The Role of Attachment in Traditional Parenting

• Supporting Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder