By Melissa Hugener, Waypoint’s Director of Early Childhood and Family Support
Waypoint serves families from all backgrounds in our Family Resource Centers (FRC), with the mission of helping families get what they need to succeed. We have been working hard to better serve our Spanish-speaking families. Waypoint provides language services for any family that needs it and hosts several activities for Spanish speakers through our FRCs. For example, through the Manchester FRC, we hosted a Craft and Storytime event where we read Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister, in English and Spanish. The Manchester FRC hosts several crafts and story-times in Spanish multiple times per year. This honors the family’s background and helps children from predominately Spanish-speaking households learn English.
At our Nashua FRC, staff are now sharing a monthly newsletter written for both English and Spanish speakers. Waypoint works to ensure that the families and individuals we work with know about additional resources in the community, both Waypoint’s services and other providers. Being able to share information in Spanish and English helps us to better reach and consistently inform the families we serve. This project was a work of coordination, effort, and love from Cindy Blanchard, our Nashua Family Resource Center Coordinator. Through this newsletter, Spanish-speaking families now have access to important information, such as where mobile health service buses are. “Having the FRC newsletter and other flyers in Spanish has been extremely beneficial for our families,” says Barb Walden, our Early Childhood & Family Support Supervisor, “…it makes them feel connected to our services.”
In the Upper Valley, we are working to create an opportunity for families to come together to immerse their children fully in Spanish culture in response to feedback from our bilingual families and community members. Over the past several months we have hosted morning playgroups and an evening Spanish Immersion group in partnership with the Upper Valley Buena Gente Social Club. Moving forward we are rethinking the time and place for this group in response to additional feedback from families and are working with a volunteer, a fluent, Spanish-speaking mom, who is interested in supporting this work. Renée Casey, our Upper Valley FRC Coordinator, exclaims, “How genuine for this person, who is part of our community, to bring something from within that she has a passion for and wants to share. That is what being a Family Resource Center of Quality is all about. Strengthening families, communities, and leadership, while empowering families, and engaging them to participate in program development…”
For the past 175 years, we have adapted our services to meet the evolving needs of our clients. We are committed to expanding our offerings to ensure that all our clients feel welcomed, understood, and included, and we look forward to continuing this important work.
