Focused intervention program for children recognized for its role in the Thunder Bay area community
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — Dilico Anishinabek Family Care’s Stop Now and Plan (SNAP) program for children who struggle with behavioural issues was recently recognized with one of four Thunder Bay 2020 Mayor’s Community Safety Awards for Outstanding Community Project.
“We’re extremely honoured and proud to receive the award from the city,” says Darcia Borg, executive director at Dilico Anishinabek Family Care. “This is a program that is responsive to meeting the children’s needs and the families and working together.”
SNAP is a focused intervention program for children from six to 11-years-old that teaches them about problem solving and self-control and supports their parents or caregivers with learning and implementing strategies to use with their children in the community or at home.
“The children and their caregivers come for 13 weeks of group,” says Michelle Bak, School Based – Intensive Treatment Services and SNAP manager at Dilico Anishinabek Family Care. “Some of those are individual sessions where the children attend a group with facilitators and the parents or caregivers attend a group with their own facilitators. They each need to learn a different set of skills so they can work collaboratively through issues the children might be having.”
Bak says the SNAP program also features joint sessions where the parents or caregivers and the children practice the skills together.
“In addition to the weekly group, they get check-ins, phone calls, school visits,” Bak says. “And we do work with families before group starts and after group just to make sure there is a continuum of care and that the families are being supported throughout.”
The SNAP program also continued operating as a pilot virtual-based program during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic by offering support and check-ins with families.
“We were in the middle of a 13-week group session when COVID-19 shut us down,” Bak says. “The SNAP child and family counsellors continued checking in with families on a weekly basis and we provided services to meet all of their needs. There were food hampers that were picked up from some of the community programs; there were gifts cards provided, some counselling that occurred just to help families throughout during those initial months of COVID-19.”
Bak says a virtual option was offered for the SNAP group once the pandemic settled down.
“All the facilitators worked from home but they all joined via the Zoom platform,” Bak says. “The SNAP child and family counsellors really stepped outside the box — they came up with really cool ways to engage the children through some games. They played Kahoot and they taught them their SNAP skills through that way.”
Bak says the SNAP child and family counsellors also did some physically distanced visits when possible with the children and their caregivers.
“I’m incredibly proud of this team,” Bak says. “SNAP is a small team within Dilico but there’s child and family counsellors and a case manager and they really go above and beyond to support families. They are very innovative and think outside the box.”|
SNAP is delivered in partnership with Children’s Centre Thunder Bay out of Dilico’s Dease Park location in Thunder Bay.
The other Outstanding Community Project recipients were Tree of Hope Project; PATH 525 – Consumption and Treatment Services, NorWest Community Health Centres; and Elizabeth Fry Society Northwestern Ontario-Food Outreach. John Kelly, chair of the Thunder Bay Skateboard Coalition, received the Community Hero Award while Noah Barile, media relations co-ordinator with the Tree of Hope Project, received the Young Leader Award.