Neighborhood Health Association (NHA) will be hosting their 2nd Annual Superhero’s Need Support Too! A Resource Workshop for Grandparents and Kinship Caregivers event on Tuesday, September 24, at Cedar Creek Church in South Toledo.
NHA, the Area Office on Aging, Lucas County Children Services, NAMI Greater Toledo, and the Believe Center worked in collaboration to plan this year’s event. The goal is to provide an opportunity for the community to attend a one – stop- shop event, focused on introducing kinship caregiver families to resources and support they need to navigate through the challenges they may experience as a caregiver.
Per Monica Morales, NHA’s Project Coordinator and committee chair for this event, “all aspects of the event were focused around the most common challenges kinship caregiver families face: Accessing Services; Social, Family Relationships, Parenting, Legal, Financial, and physical and mental healthcare. There are thousands of children across the country, in Ohio and in Lucas County living with their grandparents, relatives, or some type of kin and the numbers are growing. It is most certainly a concern and issue and that is why we and our community partners chose to put together an event that provides caregivers with as much information as they can get in one morning as opposed to chasing after information throughout the city”.
Last year, the chair highlighted the legal challenges families face, this year the committee chose to highlight the subject of mental health. “It is important for people to maintain a healthy mindset when going through changes /challenges in life such as caring for someone else’s child, that is why we wanted to highlight that particular subject this year” per Monica.
This year’s event will include three guest speakers; attendees will hear caregiver testimonials, learn tips on how to care for others that have experienced trauma from experienced professionals and tips on how to practice self-care, especially when experiencing challenging times in one’s life.
The planning committee is especially excited to announce that the Ohio Justice Bus will also be onsite for the duration of the event providing free legal consultation for registered attendees. The Area Office on Aging, Lucas County Job and Family Services, Harbor and Unison will present the various programs and resources their organizations have available for kinship families. Lucas County Children Services, The Believe Center, NAMI of Greater Toledo, Neighborhood Health Association, Mental Health and Recovery Services Board, Anthem, Buckeye Health and many other resource organizations will be onsite to share information and recourses available for families as well. “Caregivers are superheroes for taking on the parental role and responsibility and giving the child or children that they’re raising a sense of stability, comfort, safety and so much more” stated Monica Morales.
The event is free and open to the community. Attendees will receive a free lunch, gift cards, gift bags, and will also be entered in a gift basket raffle.
To register please register on the Eventbrite registration link at https://bit.ly/NHASuperHero or call Monica Morales at 419-309-1312.