Special COVID-19 Interview: Alison Nicol, Encompass Support Society

Photo by Julietta Watson on Unsplash

We spoke with Alison Nicol, Senior Programs Manager at Encompass Support Services Society in Langley about how the team there had been able to continue to support their participant families since the social isolation recommendations came in place to assist in combatting the Covid-19 virus.

Alison said that they began with connection calls from Family Place to individual participants, talking through the anxieties and stresses families were experiencing. Emerging trends centred around food security and mental health pieces, especially with the added stress of having infant’s older siblings home from school and daycare not happening.

The team looked at ways of supporting the families, and determined that the most effective strategy would be to prepare and deliver a takeaway meal once a week to families, both to support food security and nutrition, and also to relieve the burden of one main meal planning, shopping, and preparation per week for the family.

They started by identifying the families who most needed the support. They had access to a kitchen and put together meals such as mac and cheese, which were frozen, packaged with cooking instructions, and dropped off to families at their home. The families being assisted through the outreach were primarily those accessing the programs at Aldergrove Family Place, along with others in the Langley area.

An individual donor offered tulips, which were made into a bouquet and delivered with one of the weekly meal drop offs, to brighten the day when it has been rough going.

Once the meal deliveries were up and running, staff looked at what else they could do to support the families, and came up with the idea of Fun Packs to deliver along with the meals. These have been a lot of work to put together, but the families are really enjoying them and are excited to receive them.

The Fun Packs are themed. Each one contains books, which are individualized for families, such as by including a book for an older sibling. The also include items such as homemade playdough (along with a recipe on how to make more); crafts, games, bubble mix (again with instructions on how to make your own), sidewalk chalk, etc. They include lots of ideas on how to play with and engage with your kids.

A recent pack had a Father’s Day craft (provided by a local partner), a building craft project that kids can do for their dad or with their dad.

The Fun Packs have sparked interest from other program coordinators at the agency, who are exploring how to adapt the concept for older age groups.

Alison’s team has looked for a variety of ways to maintain contact with the participant families and to continue to support the families with whom they work. Some families come to pick up their food from the agency, which gives a point of engagement. When families are picking up from the agency, they are also able to refill their hand sanitizer bottles from a large pump-operated tub which is being kept onsite. The team has also been working collaboratively with Aldergrove primary school to support families.

The agency has received a grant to assist them to continue serving families during the Covid-19 crisis. They have been able to connect with families who need financial support during this time to give gift cards, and have been able to use this as a conversation starter about what financial issues the family is struggling with and how to access supports. Primary issues for families have been grocery shopping, paying rent, and paying bills that are piling up. As staff interacts with families, it is possible to ask, “What can we do to offer community and support for you?” Broader conversations are opening up because of the support and trust families feel from the Family Place.

Program coordinators from other programs have also pitched in with support for the outreach, such as staff members from the residential program that provides emergency housing for youth, who have been baking cookies to add to the family packs, and who made up decorating packs for kids to use to decorate the cookies at home. The program staff members identified that they had the capacity to provide this support, even though they have been stretched to learn baking skills for large-scale baking.

Alison is very grateful that they have been able to access emergency funding to offer these supports to families, including outreach by their pregnancy support programs, including CPNP, whose staff have been dropping off safe, sanitized packages for families with new babies.

Families have identified that they are struggling with the feelings around forced isolation. In order to break down this barrier and help families maintain connection with each other, the Lunch Program has been meeting with guest speakers. Recognizing that many families don’t have internet and normally use libraries and community centres for access, the schools have been great partners and have been able to help families to access technology if there are school-aged children in the family.

Alison spoke highly of the staff and community collaborators who have come together to address the current extraordinary issues. She noted that the work and initiative by staff at the agency has been inspiring, and commented that watching people come together to support each other in difficult times is amazing and empowering, especially the resiliency and creativity that arise out of it.

The next project staff members are looking at is producing videos of story-time for families to access.

In conclusion, Alison stressed that building connections and trust are the key to being able to support families at the moment, so that families feel comfortable connecting with the staff if they are feeling overwhelmed. Because the staff members who are doing the deliveries for the food program have to arrange a time for the drop-off, it gives an opportunity for regular check-in conversations with families.

Team work together as a staff and collaboratively with the school district to support families has been significant. Family Place has become a hub for supporting families in their community and other support agencies have been connecting with Family Place to collaborate on providing support to families.

The approach has been to meet people where they are at, to find ways to get through this together, as a community. And Alison adds, “When there is the opportunity to make people smile along the way, that is a huge bonus.”

Alison says, “Our doors are still open. They have just become virtual.”