Walking back to the parking lot with her daughter after attending a class for parents and kids about how to communicate better, one mom was surprised by her child’s response.
“My daughter approached me before we even got into the car to tell me she needed to talk — which was uncharacteristic,” she later told the facilitator who ran the session. “She unloaded some secrets she’d been keeping for months, and she said it was because she learned about being honest about hard things. Because of what I learned in this program, we were able to connect openly and authentically, and problem-solve together.”
That more open, honest conversation between the pair — and other families like them — is due to the work of University of Alberta students from the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences.
Through HECOL 301, a Community Service Learning course, the human ecology students created a series of sessions, called the Strong Families program, designed to help parents and children aged eight to 12 strengthen their communication skills.
The program was successfully piloted last winter by the Family Futures Resource Network, a provincial agency that supports families, and fills an important need for younger children and their families, says Lori Jeske, a parent educator with the organization.
“Those preteen years are pivotal for building the foundation for strong communication skills moving into the teen years,” she says.
“As part of normal development, their friend groups and school communities gain importance, but we as parents still need to provide emotional support and a safe space for our children, so if we shore up those communication paths early, they stay strong and open.”
The U of A students “brought fresh eyes, fresh energy and current research and learning to the table” for the organization, says Jeske, a graduate of the U of A human ecology program herself. “Combined with the knowledge and expertise of our staff, Strong Families is a top-notch program.”
To design the program, the students drew heavily on their courses, including HECOL 315, which touched on family counselling, and HECOL 210, about healthy relationships for couples.
“We pulled a lot from our previous courses, where we learned a lot about relationships,” says Jordan Leatherdale, one of the five students who tackled the project. “The common theme was that communication is the foundation for everything.”
The program showed participants how to develop skills including active listening, healthy communication strategies, conflict resolution and self-reflection. Six weekly sessions delivered by facilitators with the Family Futures Resource Network offered discussions, activities and games.
The program’s innovative approach brought parents and children together for “learning in real time,” Jeske notes.
“Instead of being in a silo, they are learning together, and that encourages collaboration between the parents and children as they discover these new communication strategies.”
The program was designed to be fun for the children and easy for their parents or caregivers to adopt, adds Leatherdale, who has since earned a BSc in human ecology with a major in family science.
“We wanted to introduce concepts of communication in ways that will stick with people, instead of strictly spewing information through lectures. It’s more about, ‘Here are some things you can do differently to make life a bit easier and relationships a bit better.’”
Learning activities included computer games for the children and self-journalling for the adults.
Along the way, the program introduced aspects that struck a chord with participants, including a session about how to have vulnerable conversations, Jeske says, noting that it helped one youngster open up about being bullied at school.
“It allowed the participants to recognize vulnerability as courage, not weakness, so a child would be more empowered to tell Mom or Dad rather than keep it to themselves. That leads to helping get the support the child needs.”
The agency plans to offer the program again in the spring of 2025, Jeske says.
Serving the community
The project gave the students an opportunity to serve the community using their classroom skills, says human ecology professor Deanna Williamson, who teaches HECOL 301.
The third-year course requires them to develop a program for a community partner like the Family Futures Resource Network in a hands-on, comprehensive way, she notes.
“They have to learn about who their clients are, meet with and collect information about them, develop measurable outcomes for the program, determine components like the number of sessions and types of activities, develop an evaluation plan, decide how the program will be marketed and consider what the partner would need to do in terms of allocating resources and staff needed,” she says.
“Then they need to develop substantive content for the program — in this case, content on parent-child communication, which is about applying what they’ve already learned in other courses and what they've learned from library research.”
That the program was put into action by Family Futures Resource Network speaks to the power of the students’ work, Williamson adds.
“The agency was able to implement it in some form with a group of families, and those participants applied what they learned. That highlights the positive social value of human ecology — to have an impact in people’s everyday lives.”
The work also shows the students the difference they can make before they even complete their degrees, she notes.
“It helps them see themselves as people who have valuable knowledge and skills they can contribute as developing professionals.”
“Knowing that our plan may have had some positive impact for families in their lives is an incredible thing to think about,” Leatherdale adds.
