Area FCSS groups ready to lend a helping hand

The Milk River Parent Link Centre and Barons Eureka-Warner FCSS are ready to work hard this new year with the holiday season ending and their services and programs become of major need again.

With a focus on helping individuals, families and communities by offering support, counselling and preventative services in 16 municipalities across southwest Alberta from Coutts to Barons, the FCSS works year-round to support those in need through a variety of different methods.

“We offer everything from diapers to dentures, from infant massages up to seniors conferences,” says Zakk Morrison, Director of Parent Link Centre and FCSS. “FCSS is a prevention organization so we try our best to help prevent crises from happening and focus on building strong relationships and families throughout all the communities that we are active in.”

Through offering free to minimal cost counselling, parental, teen and senior programs as well as services for marriages, couples and families, the FCSS is supported from both the provincial and municipal governments to cover areas in southern Alberta including Barons, Nobleford, Picture Butte, Taber and Vauxhall to Grassy Lake, Barnwell, Stirling, Raymond, Warner, Milk River and Coutts.

However, the flow of people accessing these much-needed services throughout the holiday season often sees a steady decline, Morrison said, but now that the new year has come and gone the offices are gearing up for large influxes of people within the upcoming weeks.

“Someone could typically access programs all year-round. However, we usually see a lull over Christmas time as families get together, but as we start back up in the new year, we typically see a high volume of people coming in, sometimes with issues that have arose over the holidays,” explains Morrison.

“Our popular programming times actually closely follow the school calendar.”

However, Morrison also added even though the volume of people accessing these services varies over the year, the most utilized programs by the public remain a steady constant.

With the counselling team and staff one of the most commonly taken advantage of — Morrison said that being able to offer free counselling sessions and teams to community members without the need of referral in municipalities both small and big across southern Alberta is both an important and popular service among the general public.

The other key service offered through FCSS, says Morrison is the Parent Program which allows all new parents with children under the age of five to attend parental education classes, developmental screening and a stay and play aspect which helps the parents network with professionals and other parents and create conversations while decreasing isolation.

“Another one of our more popular programs is our intergenerational program,” added Morrison.

“This program brings together our older generation and youths to spend time together doing different activities, it’s the closest thing many seniors have said that students can get to ‘time-travel.’”

With a governing board of nine members appointed by local municipal councils, the services and programs offered by the FCSS in each community are constantly being updated to suit the needs of the general populations.

With big plans in place to up their social media and marketing game, the FCSS is in the works of combining websites and pages to create a better awareness of all that is available for people of all ages throughout the south of the province throughout the year.

“I’ve always personally believed that its important to promote wellness and health and prevent illness and crisis. So, I believe that that’s really where the value comes in to promote healthy relationships in a preventative manner instead of trying to fix things after they’re already broken.”