Parents, officials celebrate graduation day from Family Resiliency Program

CAMBRIDGE, Md – For the past seven weeks, families in Dorchester County have been participating in the family resiliency program, learning how to cultivate tighter bonds with their children in the healthiest way possible.

“Parenting doesn’t come with a manual,” community engagement coordinator, Shay Lewis- Sisco, said. “There are tools out there to help foster that relationship– to not only foster support between them and their child, but also the support that’s needed to help them, when they are feeling in distress or frustrated.”

Sisco said it’s not easy unlearning some of the habits parents use to discipline their kids, but the work that each family has been putting in will reap great benefits.

“The parents showing up, the parents actually engaging in the conversation, and the parents taking away something that’s tangible, to be able to use not just in the long run, but to be able to use now,” Lewis-Sisco said.

Now, at the end of their seven weeks, author Joy Thomas-Moore spoke words of encouragement to the parents, letting them know that their participation is a tremendous step forward in ensuring a better future for their children.

“They matter and they are important, and they have the strength to really bring the leadership to the community and instill that in their children, so the next generation is even stronger than the last,” Thomas- Moore said.