March’s Great Start Parent Coalition Meeting – Protecting Youth from Abuse

March’s coalition meeting had a great turn out. We had a great dinner from Subway and cupcakes for dessert. The book-mobile was outside once again for our families to enjoy. The room was filled with great conversations as the kids worked on an activity from the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum.  After dinner, the kids headed to childcare to work on their arts and crafts as we settled into our icebreaker.  I asked the group, “If you were stranded on a deserted island, what three things could you not live with out?” There was a lot of fun answers and laughter at the idea.

Our topic for the month was on safe touches and how to talk to your kids about abuse. We had a fantastic guest speaker from the Children’s Advocacy Center. She talked with our families about how to spot abuse and how to talk to our kids about it. Also discussed was the importance of teaching your children the proper names for their body parts. Our parents had a lot of questions and she took the time to answer them all. She was also kind enough to bring some great reading materials and resources for our families to take home.

Two of our parent reps gave an update on what has been happening with our COFI group. They have been working on setting personal goals and the group has really opened up to one another. It is great to see our parents grow.

We went around the room and asked if anyone had any community updates they would like to share. Jan talked about the play and learn groups and how parents could get involved. Anthony also mentioned the bowling with dad event that we had coming up. We then raffled off a bunch of family passes to the Children’s Museum and a Meijer gift card. I want to thank all our families for their participation. We are committed to helping our families achieve greatness, and we know that they will.