As you may have noticed from some of my other posts, my career allows me the opportunity to enhance our programing with cake on occasion. One such occasion presented itself recently. Our final session of Strengthening Families allowed us a grand celebration with four families who completed the program.
Strengthening Families is a curriculum from Iowa State University that Christy Strickland, our Robeson County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension, Family and Consumer Sciences Agent implements. During the seven week program the families have dinner together, then split into adult and youth groups (the youth in this program are 10-14), then come back together during a family session at the end of each night. During the program the parents learn about listening to the youth, setting limits, discipline, and having families meeting to allow the entire family to work as a group. The youth learn about the responsibilities that parents face, learn why it is important to follow rules and gain tools for dealing with peer pressure. As a family they work on their communication skills and find ways to talk about the tough subjects like alcohol, drugs, and sex. After completing the seven week course the families will be invited back in September for a refresher and to let us know what is working for them.
For the families that finished the program they received a certificate on the last night and celebrated with a blue ribbon cake. After all they are blue ribbon families and I could not think of a better cake to make for them. After the night everyone sat down and had one if not two pieces of cake and we were even able to salvage some, for someone important to our program to take home the next day. We just want to wish our families good luck in the future.
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