.Family
.Strengthening
Our Family Strengthening program is designed to help families learn to love, act, and communicate with each other in ways that always nurtures esteem building and healthy child development; and prevents child abuse and neglect.
- Family Success Coaches
- Short-Term ‘Ohana Outreach & Home Visits
- Parenting Skills Education
- Self- Sufficiency & Basic Life Skills Coaching
- Talk-Story Counseling
- Information, Referral & Linkage to Community Resources
- Address Parent Concerns & Basic Needs
.Kamalama Parenting
.Classes
Honesty, compassion, responsibility, persistence, faith, self-discipline; individuals who possess these traits tend to be respected by others and generally do well in life. Children are not born with these traits. Parents and others, who are a part of the children’s lives, have a responsibility to teach them right from wrong. Assuring that young children learn morals and values are one of the first and most important responsibilities parents face. These values provide the foundation for good character development. Knowing what our own values are and appreciating other people’s values can help us identify the ones we want to teach our children.
With the many demands of today’s society, more and more parents are challenged with the best way to raise their children. There is a constant demand for parenting classes and although our community has these types of classes available, few of them are approaching it from a values-based perspective. Kamalama is based on our host’s culture of traditional Hawaiian values that we believe is the very heart of what makes Hawai’i such a beautiful and welcoming place. The Hawaiian values and concepts that will be shared will express a universal language of living properly, or as the Hawaiians believed, to be a code of conduct called Pono, to be morally correct.
In a supportive learning environment, parent participants will realize how much of their own values and beliefs systems contribute to their own style of parenting. Parents will be introduced to a set of traditional Hawaiian values that reflect core fundamental principles of positive parenting.
The class will focus on the premise that parents/caregivers are truly their children’s first teachers. It will emphasize the important responsibility they have as parents and caregivers of teaching and role modeling proper values and behaviors to their children that they embrace for their ‘ohana (family) and primarily for themselves.
The Neighborhood Place of Wailuku Parenting Class called, Kamalama, literally meaning, “the light”. It is a ten (10) week course that will be conducted weekly for two (2) hours long. Each class session will incorporate a Hawaiian value and parenting principles together. Lesson plan will also include handouts, stories, illustrations, hands-on activities, reflections and homework.
