Kiwanis welcomes the Parent Cafe
Representatives from the Parent Cafe hosted at Emerson Family Resource Center spoke at the Kiwanis Club of Starkville Tuesday.
Program manager Barbara Culberson and program consultant Tammie Tubbs shared how the Parent Cafe connects parents in the community and allows them to gleam off each other’s experiences to make it through difficult situations.
Emerson Family School Director Joan Butler said the Parent Cafe is free to the public and paid for by grants from the Children’s Trust Fund in Jackson. The current Parent Cafe series meets at Emerson on each Tuesday in September at 6 p.m.
“What we do with the Parent Cafe is we try to strengthen families from the inside out,” Culberson said. “We speak from our own experiences, we listen attentively … There are no judgments, positive or negative.”
Topics at the Parent Cafe focus on five protective factors to help strengthen families. The factors are parental resilience, relationships, knowledge, support, and communication.
One of the most important parts of the Parent Cafe is networking. Parents communicate during the sessions, sharing their situations and experiences.
“That’s one thing at the Parent Cafe — we make social connections so that when you walk out, you’re never alone,” Tubbs said. “We make sure you find someone that you can connect with.”