Programs & Services > Healthy Families Healthy Communities
Healthy Families Healthy Communities
Healthy Families Healthy Communities (HFHC) is a two-year pilot project which seeks to encourage resilience and provide education to newcomer communities. The project began in April 2011 and is funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).
It developed from FST’s groundbreaking If I Had Only Known project, which deepened the organization’s expertise in the area of abuse and violence in relationships and expanded its work with newcomer communities. That project culminated in March 2011 with the publication of 15 educational brochures in Farsi, Dari, Tamil, Somali and Punjabi and Pashto.
The Healthy Families project has extended the work of the first project by focusing on four newcomer communities in Toronto: Afghan, Iranian, Somali and Tamil. Each community works in two locations across the city in areas such as Weston Road, Jane/Finch, Scarborough, and Yonge/Sheppard where FST has built relationships over the years.
The work of the Healthy Families project is comprised of two main components:
- designing and delivering educational workshops
- building and facilitating peer support groups for women and elderly people.
The peer support approach emphasizes the sharing of common experiences and trading stories without needing professionals to interpret participant’s experiences for them.
As one peer leader puts it, peer support groups “allow the women and seniors the opportunity to provide encouragement to each other, and to realize that their reactions to life’s challenges and violence in the family are not unusual or different from others in the world.”
A peer leader for the Afghan community described the project’s importance like this:
"Some Afghan women are struggling to keep safe and still live with dignity while in an abusive situation…This is an opportunity to benefit and learn from each other’s’ experiences, to believe that they have choices, and to make informed decisions.”
Educational workshops are designed to cover issues linked to the root causes of family violence such as understanding the healthcare and legal systems, securing good housing, parenting roles, and dealing with the experiences of trauma. Guest speakers often attend to share specialized information on topics such as knowing legal rights or navigating the education system.
In peer support groups, trained peer leaders facilitate groups where women can form safe confidential spaces in which to share their experiences.
Learn more about the work in each community through the following links:
Afghan
Iranian
Tamil
Somali
For more information about the Healthy Families Healthy Communities project, please contact Project Coordinator Gitanjali Lena at 416-595-4030 or email GitanjaliLe@familyservicetoronto.org
To arrange for counselling, please call our Service Access Unit, Tel: 416.595.9618
