Archways' Threads

Narrator 00:02
Welcome to Archways' Threads, a show focusing on the threads of family and recovery support services that help make up the tapestry of life in recovery. Join us as we share stories from peers and participants in the field and practice of peer recovery support and family support and strengthening. And now your host, Archways CEO Michelle Lennon.

Michelle Lennon 00:28
Hi. I'm Michelle Lennon, and I want to thank you for joining us for the third and final wrap-up of our conversation with Karen Welford. If you've missed the first two episodes, I encourage you to go back and listen to where we started, and I hope you enjoy the rest of our conversation.

Michelle Lennon 00:44
So we've talked about the Nine Principles. Are you up for talking about the Five Protective Factors?

Karen Welford 00:52
Sure.

Michelle Lennon 00:53
Okay. So, when we talk about family support as a practice, we have these nine principles we just talked about, and then the Strengthening Families framework is something that was put out by the Center of Social Policy many, many years ago, and it has been adapted nationally, across the country, in family support practice, and is really the framework, I think, that most family resource centers are working out of throughout the country now. That wasn't always the case.

Karen Welford 01:21
No, no, and that's absolutely true, but it is amazing....well, just thinking about the standards of quality, which incorporate the protective factors. When we started, when New Hampshire started to adopt them as our criteria for the family resource centers of quality, that was in 2013 or somewhere around there. But at that time, there were 11 networks across this country that were using these protective factors as part of quality, and now there are 44 out of the 50 states that have networks of family resource centers that are using the quality. So that just shows how much of the last eight years this has just become a framework that family strengthening and support really stands by.

Michelle Lennon 02:21
Yeah, and I think for me, 15 years ago I had been trained in the Strengthening Families framework, and again, it works. So you work these actions, these everyday actions into the families that you're working with according to what they want. And some of them are very basic, like communication skills, that go along with the protective factors. The first protective factor we generally talk about is parental resilience. How well does a family bounce back in a time of crisis?

Karen Welford 03:01
Yeah, and I that is something that I do a lot of thinking about and realize, especially with families that I've worked with or just talked with others about. So often we see not only do they bounce back, but they bounce back better, which was something that I never had thought of before, but families have really taught me that. And the resilience that you can see and hopefully promote with families, because you're doing it consciously, really truly has been a gift to me to see the strength of families, and the resilience that they can show is amazing.

Michelle Lennon 03:53
One of the things I have come to realize is when people come through our door looking for help with something, and usually that's how people show up, right? Something has happened, and they're looking for some assistance because they're at their wit's end. They don't know how to navigate whatever might be out there to help them; they just don't know. They connect with us. We help them problem-solve. But then they've learned that skill.

Karen Welford 04:17
Absolutely, and that's building resilience. Before I really started to think about these protective factors, I don't know whether I thought, "Oh, well, that's building resilience." I just thought, "We're helping them problem-solve." But that is what you're doing with families when you break down the steps. We've always been so good at: okay, here's the issue, here's what you want to do. Let's break it down into steps and just take one of them. That's resilience. So we now have, and that's what's been so important to the field, is that we now have that framework, that we have the same common language of: this is what we do. And it works.

Michelle Lennon 04:58
And it works. Yeah, and it does change things. The other thing that I love is that we recognize, as family support specialists, that people are bringing different types of things with them to the table when we talk about resilience. I use the example for me, I was driving down the road on 93 and a crack in my windshield just started showing up. I was scared. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, am I going to be decapitated?" Then I'm like..."Okay, probably not, so calm down." And then I call my insurance company. They tell me what to do. I then press the button on my little Prius to call Granite State Glass and say, "This is what's happening. This is what happened." And they say, "Oh, you will be fine. You could drive the car. It's perfectly safe." That alleviated my stress dramatically. And then by the time I finished my drive to work, the entire problem was handled. I had an appointment. My insurance was covering it. I had a zero deductible. It was going to be fixed the next day; I had nothing to worry about, but I had resources behind me that allowed me to go through that process in a half hour. I think of another family who may not have insurance because their finances are tighter than mine. They may only have the one vehicle that's shared between two parents. So the stress level of "How do we give up the car for a day to get it fixed?" could be astronomical. The cost of replacing a windshield is not cheap if you don't have insurance. It's a lot of money. And so that stressor could have followed somebody for a month or more.

Karen Welford 06:41
That's right.

Michelle Lennon 06:43
Learning that in this field, that families are always coming to each situation very differently, that diversity is much bigger than what we see on the outside even. When I think about resilience, I always try to keep that in mind, because I used to have an expectation that people should bounce back from things more easily than they do sometimes, or they shouldn't but they bounce back tremendously based on my own experience.

Karen Welford 07:15
Absolutely.

Michelle Lennon 07:18
We talk about a lot about bias, implicit bias and stuff. Watching families and how resilient they are and how different it is in the diversity. It taught me a lot about people.

Karen Welford 07:33
That's right.

Michelle Lennon 07:35
And then another protective factor we alluded to was this idea of healthy social connection. You and I had many conversations about this, because I think in the peer recovery world, we have had a terrible time combating past directives that you have to give up people, places, and things. We know now that's not true, that you need resources to be able to manage your people, places, and things. And for some people, sometimes cutting people out of their lives is what they decide to do, but in family support, we knew that a lot of times people were being expected to do that for different reasons, but it wasn't possible. "Oh, well, just go into recovery living for however many days," but they're a single parent. Or they're on probation and in parole; they won't let them leave the state. They can't change the geographical setting.

Karen Welford 08:32
Or they have a cat that they don't want to leave.

Michelle Lennon 08:35
Yup, we saw that too.

Karen Welford 08:37
So yeah, that's simplistic, but having somebody to take care of the cat, and having that friend or having that neighbor that can do that, or all of those things that are so important that those social connections can provide. Isolation is often one of the the scariest things when we see a family or individual who is isolated. That, to me, is something that is really an issue that you want to address as much as you can, as quickly as you can, because that's just a scary thing to be isolated and to feel like you have no one.

Michelle Lennon 09:26
And I do think that's one of the reasons why I think family support specialists should be parent educators, because when you have a family support specialist, you build that trusting relationship in the home usually. So, it's less scary for that person to be invited to go to play group if you're going to be there, or to go to your first parent education class that you're running on a specific thing. And then, "Oh come, it would be such a great support for me. This is some of the stuff that we're talking about. Do you think you would like this?" ...and build that relationship so it's not so scary.

Karen Welford 10:00
That's what I was going to say. I was going to say it is all about relationships, which we've known all along, but something that we just continue to need to acknowledge, that it is about relationships. It's not about the education you have, not about your degrees, it's about that person's ability to relate to people, to be non-judgmental. If I'm going to mold a successful family support worker, it is those two qualities: those that can build relationships--trusting relationships--with others, and be non-judgmental and kind.

Michelle Lennon 10:44
Yeah. Just using my car example of my windshield being replaced, I just picked up the phone and called a friend and said, "Can you bring me to work?" And again, when you don't have that social connection... And it's another reason why I think the family resource centers have those programs is to help build those connections for people who may have lost them or just need them. I think especially young parents, before your kids get to school, once your kids get to school, and they get in sports, and there's different things going on, if you're able to support them even. I was not a cheer mom in high school, but I knew some of the cheer moms and I relied on that because I was operating, really, as a single parent doing everything: work, my job and stuff, and I really relied on them for my daughter to have rides to different things, or fundraising. They even helped me surprise her for her 16th birthday, and brought roses and chocolates and cupcakes to one of the football games in September--I'll never forget it--to help surprise her. I literally just dropped the stuff and ran, because that's what I had to do. At 16, she didn't care if mom didn't hang around. But, yeah, those social connections. I think sometimes we deny people a sense of identity, too, when we tell them, "Oh, you shouldn't hang around with those people." Remove that word "should." In thinking about even some of the folks that play in bars, for instance, play music, telling them, "Oh, you can't do that anymore." I've heard that, and no, we don't say that.

Michelle Lennon 12:32
All right, how about concrete supports in times of need? That is another protective factor, and I know for us as an agency, food insecurity is a big one, and so we're fortunate, we have a really good relationship with the local food pantry so we can access it 24/7. Clothing, school supplies. We have probably bought about $500 worth of school supplies just to have the basics available for our families.

Karen Welford 12:59
Yeah, and I think that's usually...that's often the reason that families walk into a family resource center is because they need some kind of concrete help. And again, as we're building that relationship, yes, we can help you with housing. What else is going on in your life?

Michelle Lennon 13:23
Yeah.

Karen Welford 13:23
And that's why family resource centers are different. They build the relationship, and then help with the concrete needs, with the wood, or with anything else.

Michelle Lennon 13:38
Sometimes it's an electric bill, or...

Karen Welford 13:44
...and then, because of the relationship you've built, they're able to move into other issues that are happening to them, that you can support them, you can walk with them and try to solve what's happening in their life.

Michelle Lennon 14:00
Because we do find a lot of families are okay unless some small crisis happens. And I say small crisis, but to them it can be devastating. A tire blows and it's going to be $200 to fix it, and they don't have the $200 unless they take it from their rent.

Karen Welford 14:16
Yes, because they don't have the tire, and they can't go to work because they don't have a car, and they don't have any other transportation, and then if they lose their job, what's going to happen to their housing? And it does snowball. We know that, and that's why there is funding that now has been developed within the family resource center network that can address those things. There was a time when it wasn't, and it was heartbreaking when we were doing this. What do we do? We found it. We always found it. I can't say that we didn't find it, but boy, it was hard and it took a lot of time.

Michelle Lennon 14:59
And it has gotten harder, I think, with the cost of electric going up, and housing has just gone crazy. And different parts of the country, we all have our different needs that come up. We talk about emergent needs and family resource centers adapting to what is the emergent need now. And housing, by far, in New Hampshire is so tough right now. We find that we're continuously coaching families to access the pantry, because even if you're not food insecure, that money that you're saving can go towards your rent this month.

Karen Welford 15:30
That's right. Absolutely.

Michelle Lennon 15:33
And we also know, again, if we can mitigate that stress, it makes it a better environment for families in the home. Trestle Funds in our state, was an award by New Hampshire Charitable Foundation that helped bolster families. I love the name "Trestle," because you think of the trestle of the train tracks, bolstering families. That's made a huge difference.

Karen Welford 15:56
Yes, it has. And that was, I would say, just from the outside looking in, that was a lot of advocacy by the providers, to say, "We don't need more equipment. What we need is money to address these concrete needs, and to be able to get it without question." That was always the issue. Before that, if we needed it for something, often you had to go through so many hoops and barriers to get that, and it's three weeks later that you're able to get it. Well, they needed it now. So the Trestle Fund has been wonderful, and that, I think, is due to the providers really advocating for that.

Michelle Lennon 16:47
And we're very fortunate to have some funders that think it's worth it. The knowledge of parenting and child development, that was something that had a huge impact on my life. I have never yelled at my kids again after taking Active Parenting of Teens, and I tell the story of my young daughter refusing to go to cheer practice, and I was screaming at her from the bottom of the stairs that I wasn't killing myself to keep her in cheer--because it was an expensive sport--if she was going to lay in bed and not go to practice. And then I went up, and I calmed down, and I apologized to her for yelling, and started my "if and when" training of taking a parent education class. "If you stay in bed, then you're choosing to withdraw from cheer. I'm okay with it. I'm not mad at you. I'm no longer upset. I'm sorry that I yelled at you, but I just want you to understand the consequences of your choice." And then I went downstairs and sat in the car and waited, and she came down with her cheer stuff, but she ended up graduating from college as a cheerleader.

Karen Welford 17:53
Yeah, I think this is one of the really important--what I've seen as a really important--protective factor, mainly because of expectations. So many of the families that I would see had unrealistic expectations of that 18-month-old or that 2-year-old, and it wasn't their fault. They had nothing to fall back on. They had no knowledge to go back on, to think, "Oh, this is what developmentally...maybe they don't know how to share at 2 years old, and this is why they're playing this way." And so I fall back on this protective factor. I used to fall back on it when I was working with families a lot, it was that they really needed to know what were the expectations for that age group. And when I worked with early intervention, not necessarily for that child's age group, but for their developmental age, it was so important. And families, I think, all of a sudden became relieved that, well, we don't have to expect them to be talking at a year. And there is nothing wrong with my child because she's not talking in sentences at 12 months old. And so, I mean, that is a really important protective factor, because I think often that stresses families. They expect too much. I think it often can be really stressful.

Michelle Lennon 19:31
I can remember working with families that had young children doing chores that were just not developmentally appropriate, and then getting so angry at them, punishing them. "Oh, they're supposed to change the cat box at 6 years old." It's like, "Let's talk about the developmental age and what realistic expectations are, and then you tell me what you think about that."

Karen Welford 19:55
And how you can support them.

Michelle Lennon 19:57
How do you come alongside of them?

Karen Welford 19:59
Telling them to clean up the whole room...

Michelle Lennon 20:02
And they're so overwhelmed.

Karen Welford 20:04
They're so overwhelmed that they can't even mobilize. So, yeah, I think that's really an important thing that needs to continue to be discussed as as they grow.

Michelle Lennon 20:15
I think that the Parents as Teachers, Growing Bright Kids, there are some really great home visiting curriculums out there that really teach the value of coming alongside and not telling, and how much kids learn from that and develop that connection. They talk about bonding and stuff like that.

Karen Welford 20:35
Right.

Michelle Lennon 20:35
I think working with families affected by substance use, too, knowing that their own brains have been affected, that they may not get the good feels that we tend to expect from parents in their relationship with their children, and that feeling of "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?" And it's like, "No, nothing wrong with you, nothing wrong with you." Let's understand childhood development. Let's understand serve and return, and then let's also talk about your brain and the healing process of being somebody in recovery, and why it's going to look a little different than what the Pampers commercials talk about. Although we don't see those much anymore, right?

Karen Welford 21:14
Yeah.

Michelle Lennon 21:14
I think that leads into that social and emotional competence of children. We think about a child's ability to communicate things and I think this was a big eye-opening thing for me, too, as a parent, that my daughter wasn't trying to be willfully defiant about not going to cheer. She was communicating something to me, and it was exhaustion. Between all the sports and cheer practice and the demands of school at that time and stuff. It was exhaustion that she was communicating to me. I didn't hear it. What I heard was the money that I was spending as a stretched parent on the cost of cheer practice. And I have to say, it takes a community and a healthy social network. God bless that cheer gym owner, because she worked with me, and I'll tell you, the day I went back in and handed her a $1,000 check to catch up on everything was the day I finally felt good about myself again as a parent, but I didn't want my daughter to be damaged because of my ineptitude is what it felt like as a parent. So I went in there with my hat in my hand, and asked is there any way she can stay in until the end of the season? And then I'll come back and I'll try to make it up somehow. And they let her stay in. And learning to advocate for myself in times of need, too, helps us build those social networks, helps us see the resources that are out there. And it's not easy. It is never easy asking for help, but building that social, emotional competence for kids, for them to be able to communicate to us their needs. Sometimes we don't even see it.

Karen Welford 22:50
Yeah, and I think this really speaks to: it's a parent-child relationship, so it takes both of them and sometimes we need to help the child to build their social, emotional competencies--again, depending on their age--and I think especially if we see a child with a developmental delay or disability or a child with autism, this becomes even more important because they don't have the same social emotion, and the parent can get very frustrated that it's them but it is the communication that is impossible because of what's happening with the child. And so understanding that it isn't just me, it's two of us, and sometimes it is the child. It's not wrong. It's just that's who they are and what they are and so just becoming aware that that does make a difference in your relationship, that social, emotional development of the child makes a difference in your relationship. It's not just you.

Michelle Lennon 24:03
And it's really learning on both sides I think about this because I get very frustrated sometimes with the apps advertised on Facebook about attention deficit disorders. I have spent a lifetime programming somebody in my life, saying, "You are wonderfully made. You're wired a little bit different. You'll see words like neurodivergent. Don't listen to that stuff. You're just who you are. and with that wiring comes different gifts, different skills, and different things that you got to manage, attention being one of them. And I can remember the difference in treatment between an educated parent and an uneducated parent was one thinking that this child was being willfully defiant when he would forget a science book at home, or he forgot his gym clothes, and it was like, "Damn kid can't get his stuff straight," whereas the parent that had been through our parent education program was like, "Oh no, it's not willful defiance. He just forgot." We got to make a tool for him to be able to remember. So a little Velcro chart with: Your Sneakers, Your Backpack, Your School, Your Science Book, Your Math Book. Whatever it was that he would forget would get added to the list. And every day before school, they would check the list and check it off together." Oh, nope, I don't have my gym sneakers." And so before they got out the door, they would have that stuff. And I think that was the value of, in that case, it was a special ed para that--very often they are family support specialists in those roles--that helped work through that situation. And what a difference between the stress of forgetting for the third time that week something that he needs and having to run back to school, to have that support to be able to manage those things. And I think even as an adult with attention deficit issues, I live by Google Calendar. I have people in my social network that now, "Oh, 3:00 this day? Oh, I could be wrong." Because these things follow us our whole life. And I do feel like family resource centers get that so they're not going to judge you. And a good family support specialist, they train themselves up on all of this stuff. With every family that comes through the door, there's new challenges.

Karen Welford 26:26
Absolutely.

Michelle Lennon 26:29
Well, Karen, is there anything else that you would like to share? I can't thank you enough for all the work that you have done for the state of New Hampshire. Your name comes up so often in the association meetings of the directors of all the family resource centers, for the work that you did to push, for getting us organized, for getting data platformed to measure the work that we're doing. You've helped us, looking at some of our programs to evaluate them and to move forward with this evidence-based study and things. You have left a legacy, I would say, not only here in New Hampshire, but across the country with the work that you've done with the National Family Support Network and in Massachusetts and all these different venues. So we are very grateful for your presence in our world.

Karen Welford 27:16
Thank you, Michelle. I really appreciate it. I really feel it's been a privilege to work with the people in this field and and to do whatever contribution I could do. So I really appreciate your kind words.Thank you.

Michelle Lennon 27:33
Well, thank you, Karen, and we'll see you next time. Bye, bye.

Narrator 27:37
Thank you for listening to Archways' Threads. If there is a topic you'd like to see us cover, email us at podcast@archwaysnh.org or call us at 603-960-2128. Visit our website at archwaysnh.org to learn more about the Archways family of recovery and family resource centers.