Bridgeway Family Centre

Fig 1. Bridgeway Family Centre (Heart Lake location) (Bridgeway Family Centre, 2018)

Overview of programs

“Bridgeway Family Centre” (Heart lake location) is a charitable and non-profitable

organization which provides a support network to families as well as their children. It was very

interesting to learn that Bridgeway family centre has been serving families in Peel since 1984.

This family centre works collaboratively with community partners, agencies and other

organizations to provide free services and programs to families. These programs offer parents

and children easy access to a suite of free high-quality early years programs where families,

children, and caregivers can connect together

The family centre offers early learning programs and services for children. Family

Centre offers various programs to infants such as mother goose, infant-massage, and babies on
the move. All these programs focused on supporting the emotional, social, sensory and physical

skills of infants. At the time of my visit, It was good to see the number of children of ages 0 to 9

months coming to Mother goose program. It is the program which is facilitated by the supervisor

to whom I met during my visit and talked about the services offered by the family centre.

Infant massage is another program specially designed for parents to learn massage

techniques for the physical development of children and this program is designed for babies who

are not yet mobile. During the meeting, I have learned that this program was started by one lady

(name not confirm) who went to India and

learned about Indian infant massage and

its benefits for young children. Then, the

lady visited different countries to learn

about their massage techniques. After

learning and searching for different

massage techniques, the lady made this

program and trained other staff to provide

Fig 2. Infant Massage (Morgan Creek Family
free workshops to parents.
Chiropractic, 2015)
 For Toddlers
Bridgeway Family Centre offers
three programs-‘Babies on the
move’, ‘Toddler time’ and ‘Ready
Set Go!’ Toddler time and Ready
Set Go offer circle time is the
main focus where stories and
songs are sung by adults and
children along with craft
materials and props. It provides
an opportunity for toddlers to
spend time with their parents and
other children which contribute
to their social skills.
For Preschoolers
The programs offer by Bridgeway
family centre for preschoolers are
Discovery time and Preschool
time. These programs provide an
opportunity for children to
explore their surroundings
through hands-on experiences.
These programs strive to promote
the cognitive skills of children and
to prepare children to start
Kindergarten.

For families, Bridgeway family centre offers Drop in, Family time, Journey together, And

Tales n tunes programs. All these programs enable families to spend quality time with their

children and to scaffold the children’s learning through songs, cultural activities, rhymes, and

other experiences. These programs provide opportunities for families to promote their children’s

development by working in partnership with Staff members and other community members.

Also, Post-partum mood disorder peer support group supports families mainly mothers of new

babies during their time of distress and Understanding baby’s sleep enables families to learn

about sleep patterns in babies and strategies to be used to support baby’s sleep.
 During my visit, I really wanted to learn more about the Journey together program, so I

prepared several questions to deepen my knowledge about this program. It was interesting to

learn about this program from the supervisor. This program is offered by different Bridgeway

family centre locations and it started in January 2019. This program is organized by Bridgeway

family centre by working

collaboratively with Peel Aboriginal

Network and this program is

designed to provide a sense of

Fig 5.
Journey Together (Bridgeway Family Centre, 2018). belonging and support to the

indigenous community in the Region

of Peel and to provide information to non-indigenous people about indigenous culture. Also, I

have learned that both indigenous and non-indigenous families come to this program to engage

in cultural activities. According to the supervisor, Family outreach workers facilitated this

program and along with cultural activities, this program offers drum workshops, talking circles

and community education. This program also focuses on indigenous issues such as low income,

exclusion, food insecurity etc. Through this program, indigenous families get the chance to build

a network with family outreach workers and community members which support families by

providing resources, counseling and workshops. Supervisor highlighted the fact that along with

providing support to families this program also contributes to the early development of

indigenous children. This program offers activities such as hand drumming, story-telling,

crafts, circle-time, and smudging, etc. which help children to develop fine motor, cognitive, and

communication and literacy skills.

Key learnings from the visit and other interesting facts:

 I have learned that parents and families are stronger when they work together with the

support of their communities. As it is rightly said by the Wells, “Community is where

two or more people have learned how to transcend their differences to successfully

complete a common goal” (as cited in Macdonald, 2019, PowerPoint slides week 1). The

Bridgeway Family Centre provides a support network to all families and helps families to

raise their children. It is really a great organization which provides support to all the

families of different backgrounds and their children.

 From the visit, I have learned that the number of new-comer and immigrant families are

taking the advantage of all the programs offered by Bridgeway Family Centre. The role

of the supervisor and other staff members is to refer families to additional services such

as sleep consultant, speech therapist, infant spa etc. and to engage families in the learning

process of children. All the services provided by the Bridgeway family centre such as

family time, mother goose, journey together, post-partum sessions etc. support the

mental, emotional and social wellbeing of the families whereas educational and

meaningful experiences support the overall development of their children.

 Bridgeway family centre works on all the 3 dynamic forces of collaboration such as

Time, Turf and Trust (Macdonald, 2019, PowerPoint slides week 1). According to the

supervisor, Staff members at Bridgeway family centre always try to build a strong

relationship with families, with time and encourage them to participate in all the services

and programs and encourage them to provide feedback to staff members. This strong

partnership results in improved quality and better outcomes of the services. Bridgeway
 family centre always works in turf with families and local organizations. The mutual trust

results in strengthening the community to solve all the community issues.

 There is a program named ‘Me and my Dad’ offered by Bridgeway family centre. This

program enables fathers to visit the centre and participate in the learning process of

children. Also, it helps fathers to build strong bonding with their children. This is really a

good approach by Bridgeway organization because along with a mother, father’s support

and involvement put a positive impact on the behavior as well as the development of a

child.

During my visit, the supervisor showed me the annual report (2017-2018) of the

Bridgeway Family Centre and it was really interesting to learn from the report present on the

website that through different programs, this organization served 13,310 adults and 12,534

children. Whereas, in total 90,965 adults and 99,368 children visited the site (Bridgeway Family

Centre, 2019).

People served by Bridgeway family centre in 2017-2018

Adults served Children served

13,310 12,534

TOTAL SERVED
25,844
 Number of people visited the Bridgeway organization

• 90,965 • 99,368 • 190,333

Adults Children Total

Average of 665

people visited per day

It means that Bridgeway Family Centre is serving families all over the

Peel

Also, I have learned that this organization provides volunteer opportunities to college

students. It was really informative to learn from the supervisor that in order to serve the families,

children and the community, one can apply online for volunteer and career opportunities.
Stakeholders within the organization
Funders and
Different stakeholders such as the board of directors,
partners funders, Executive director, manager, Supervisor, staff,

volunteers, and families work collaboratively for the success

Board of Directors
of all the programs offered by Bridgeway Family Centre.

Program Manager
The region of Peel is the biggest funder of the Bridgeway

Supervisor family center. Other funders are the Ontario government,

Community Foundation of Mississauga, Chapters, the

Staff members
Mississauga food bank, etc. All these funders support

Bridgeway family centre through funds and grants.

Volunteers
This organization is supervised by the board of directors.
Families
The chair of the board and vice chair hold the most power

and authority on the board of directors. Other members of

the board are secretory, directors, executive director, and treasurer. The board of directors works

for the success and the management of the organization by making strategies and financial

management policies. The directors visit the centre occasionally. In a region, there is a program

manager who takes care of the activities of different locations of Bridgeway family centre. The

program manager visits different Bridgeway locations on different days.

Each location is supervised by the supervisor. The role of the supervisor is to plan and

implement programs, supervise staff members and RECEs and support families. The supervisor
at the Heart Lake location facilitated many programs such as infant massage, Mother Goose,

tales n tunes, and family time. Also, the supervisor interacts with the family during the drop-in

time and provides resources to them. The role of the staff members and RECEs is to facilitate

various programs, interact with families, support families, observe children and plan experiences

for children based on their interest. Volunteers and placement students work with staff members

to provide quality education and support to children and their families. Also, volunteers allow

Bridgeway family centre to increase the capacity to meet the needs of families in the community.

Families also work for the success of the organization by building connections with other

families, by supporting other families, by doing surveys and by providing feedback for future

modifications.

Community capacity building

Bridgeway Family Centre believes in the power of community and works with agencies across

the region to support families and healthy child development (Bridgeway Family Centre, 2019).

 From the research and visit, it has been observed that the target groups are immigrant

families, low-income families, indigenous families, and teen mothers. The

organization builds community capacity by serving all the families through programs

and by providing a support network to all families. Also, through cultural activities

such as cultural celebrations, potluck, songs, etc., Bridgeway family centre provides

an inclusive environment for all families and encourages different background

families to take part in different programs to support the development and learning of

their children.

 Bridgeway organization works in partnership with community members and partners

and helps them to build on their strengths by supporting them to achieve their goal of

serving the community. For example, this organization connects families with
different partners and community members such as Peel Aboriginal Network,
 consultants, therapists, volunteers, etc. which further support families according to

their needs. Hence, it can be said that by connecting families with community

partners, Bridgeway family centre builds community capacity and facilitates

sustainable change in the community by focusing on community issues. This

partnership also benefits Bridgeway organization to achieve the strategic goal of

building the internal capacity to meet the needs of underserved populations

(Bridgeway Family Centre, 2019).

Bridgeway family Strengthen

Centre
community

Community
Partners

Brings
Sustainable
Families Change

Bridgeway family centre focuses on different principles of community capacity by working

collaboratively with community partners and families:

 Focus on community needs: According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies,

“Understanding the collective needs of families is central to any community capacity-

building approach” (2019). Bridgeway family centre works on meeting the community

needs by supporting the families directly or by referring the families to additional

services. Different Bridgeway locations provide easy accessibility to all families and

benefit the community in all possible ways. Also, surveys done by families for all the
 programs enabled families to make meaningful modifications on the services offered by

the centre for the betterment of the whole community.

 Strengths-based approach: According to Stewart, Lohoar, & Higgins, community

capacity depends on the collective strengths of all the community members and families

which is used to address community challenges (as cited in Australian Institute of Family

Studies, 2019). In Bridgeway Family centre, community partners, RECEs, volunteers and

families bring their expertise to solve any kind of community issues and to provide a

support network to all the families.

 Inclusive practice: “In a community capacity-building context, "inclusion" refers to the

process of partnering with as many community members and organizations as possible to

work together to achieve common goals” (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2019).

Bridgeway family centre works with different partners to build strong communities by

including all the families and by solving different community issues. For example,

Bridgeway family centre strives to provide a sense of belonging to the aboriginal

community by working with the Peel Aboriginal Network to solve different aboriginal

issues.

 Aim for sustainability: The aim of Bridgeway family centre is to build community

capacity to achieve sustainable change for the benefits of all the families. Through their

services and programs, Bridgeway family centre focuses to address the immediate needs

of families. Also, through resources and newsletters, Bridgeway family centre passes on a

range of knowledge and expertise to families to support them according to their

requirements.

‘Needs-based’, as well as ‘Strength-based’ approaches, are used by the organizations to

working with the communities (Macdonald, 2019, PowerPoint slides week 9). Bridgeway

family centre demonstrated the use of both the approaches as Bridgeway family centre
focuses on the needs of families and other challenges experienced by the families. After
learning about the needs, Bridgeway family centre builds a partnership with a local

organization to find out better solutions in order to overcome families’ problems. Also,

Bridgeway family centre uses the strength and expertise of community members to build a
stronger community.
 References
Australian Institute of Family Studies. (2019). Applying community capacity-building

approaches to child welfare practice and policy. Retrieved from

https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/applying-community-capacity-building-approaches-

child-welfare-practice-and-po/export

Bridgeway Family Centre. (2019). About us. Retrieved from https://bridgewaycentre.ca/

Bridgeway Family Centre. (2019). Who we are. Retrieved from https://bridgewaycentre.ca/

Bridgeway Family Centre. (2018). Fig 1. Bridgeway Family Centre (Heart Lake location)

[Online Image]. Retrieved from https://bridgewaycentre.ca/wp-

content/uploads/2018/12/Heart-Lake.jpg

Bridgeway Family Centre. (2018). Fig 2. Toddlers. [Online Image]. Retrieved from

https://scontent.fykz1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-

9/34791760_10155449856218053_6239973421023756288_o.jpg?_nc_cat=111&_nc_ht=

scontent.fykz1-1.fna&oh=0bc9fc9fd0a6cf0404aa78bcd2065daf&oe=5D440333

Bridgeway Family Centre. (2018). Fig 3. Preschoolers [Online Image]. Retrieved from

https://scontent.fykz1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-

9/34791760_10155449856218053_6239973421023756288_o.jpg?_nc_cat=111&_nc_ht=

scontent.fykz1-1.fna&oh=0bc9fc9fd0a6cf0404aa78bcd2065daf&oe=5D440333

Bridgeway Family Centre. (2018). Fig 5. Journey together [Online image]. Retrieved from
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UImuAKHUpRCA8QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffr-

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Macdonald, L. (2019, January 7). Defining community Week 1 [PowerPoint presentation].

Retrieved from

https://learn.humber.ca/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_121875_

1&content_id=_6987675_1

Macdonald, L. (2019, February 25). Building Community Capacity through Collaboration week

7 [PowerPoint presentation]. Retrieved from

https://learn.humber.ca/webapps/blackboard/execute/content/file?cmd=view&content_id

=_7013005_1&course_id=_121875_1&framesetWrapped=true

Macdonald, L. (2019, March 11). Building and strengthening community Relationships week 9

[PowerPoint presentation]. Retrieved from

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Morgan Creek Family Chiropractic. (2015). Fig. 2 Infant massage [Online Image]. Retrieved

from https://www.mcfchiropractic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Infant-Massage1.jpg