Families gathered in the Eckville Community Centre Thursday night for a fun-filled evening of learning.
The Eckville and Are Wellness Coalition hosted a Simple Connections, Stronger Families event to promote mental health awareness, family resiliency and coping skills.
The Simple Connections, Stronger Families pathway is broken into seven sections to help families cope through difficult times, explained Liz Lozo, Eckville and Area Wellness Coalition.
At the Oct. 24 event there was seven stations set up with a fun activity to demonstrate each of the sections.
One of the stations was dedicated to the “Togetherness” stop along the Simple Connections, Stronger Families pathway.
“That’s the place of getting together, so we’ve got a photo booth going on so families can dress up and be goofy and then take a photo all together,” said Lozo.
Local author Jaleesa Grzech was at the “Healthy Communication” station with her books to teach children about sharing their feelings and healthy mental health habits.
The area for “Positive, Healthy Relationships” featured books on the topic that can be found at the Eckville Municipal Library and the Eckville ParentLink Centre had information at the “Positive Parenting” station.
Eckville FCSS was also a partner at the event.
“One of the areas is personal wellness [“Taking Care of Yourself”] so the kids are doing some yoga and some different movements, there’s some health information over there too,” said Lozo.
Families also had the opportunity to paint a family tree together to discuss who is all in their family and their support systems at the “Extended Family” station.
The final station, “Community Connections”, was meant to bring people together.
“There’s a huge big puzzle that we’re hoping the families will work together to solve,” Lozo added.
Lozo explained the event, a first of its kind in Eckville, was inspired by a toolkit the coalition purchased through Alberta Health Services.
She said the pathway of resiliency was created in Lethbridge and they imitated some of those activities for the free family event.
“It’s all volunteer-based so everybody came together to make this event happen for our community,” explained Lozo. “We’re very thankful for all our community volunteers that make these events actually possible.”