Through HAND2E, MRCSSI provides:

• Guidance and advocacy to help families access the supports and services their children need.
• Culturally responsive programming that respects family values and language preferences.
• Skill-building workshops for parents to better support their children’s development and well-being.
• Connection to community resources to foster inclusion, engagement, and resilience for both children and families.

By empowering families with knowledge, tools, and connections, HAND2E ensures that children with different abilities can thrive, and that parents feel confident and supported in their caregiving journey.

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Caring Dads is an evidence-based program intended to help fathers improve their parenting skills to become more child-focused. It also helps fathers improve their relationship and their communication with their children and partners. For the first time, Caring Dads has been culturally adapted to be offered in the Arabic language. This program is being run in collaboration with Changing Ways and is funded by Islamic Relief Canada.

• Caring Dads is a group intervention program for men who are struggling with their children, at risk of being abusive, or have abused, neglected, or exposed their children to domestic violence.
• 17-week program, culturally adapted to be offered in Arabic for the first time.
• The Caring Dads curriculum works with fathers to increase their awareness and help them improve their parenting skills to become more child-focused. It also helps them improve their relationship and their communication with their children and spouses.

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The program increases family resiliency and is known to reduce problem behaviours in children. It also improves social competencies and school performance.

Parents develop a greater understanding of their children’s behaviour, and they learn to set limits while showing love and affection.

The Muslim Resource Centre is committed to creating a culturally adaptive program customized for collectivist cultures, predominantly Muslim families in London, Ontario. Launched in 2021 with funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the program ran 6 cohorts, including 5 in-person groups and 1 cohort who completed the program individually (due to COVID), reaching 50 families, with over half being lone-parent.

Families were diverse with respect to family size and type, education level, countries of origin, and number of years in Canada. Most were from Syria and spoke Arabic. Managing this diversity required skilled facilitation so that all felt respected and welcomed.

By the numbers (since 2016):

• 82 families
  • 129 parents (61% mothers, 39% fathers)
  • 196 children

I noticed a huge change in myself and I have more confidence now how to talk to my kids and by applying my time, it had a major role in my understanding of my children’s behaviour and how to deal with them.

Parent Testimony

I learned how to properly interrupt a conversation, since this used to be something I got in trouble for before, especially when adults would be talking. The family meeting was a success at my house.

Teen Testimony

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Expected Outcomes of SJP

•   Successful collaborative local relationships will be established between the respective Muslim communities, South Asian communities, and Children’s Aid Societies

•   Improved child protection services capacity and responses to working with Muslim and South Asian immigrant and refugee families

•   Increased capacities within the target Muslim and South Asian community organizations to support families and children at-risk of violence. Early intervention will reduce the potential of escalation of family conflict

•   The project will also lay the foundation for building effective relationships with other cultural communities, especially those from immigrant collectivist cultures

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The Family Safety Program intervenes and engages if a risk of violence is present or if an episode of violence has occurred. The main goal of the program is to ensure the safety of women and children at risk of violence while engaging the family and the community of origin.

Our services have been able to prevent so-called ‘honour-related’ violence, especially in situations where the child is pulled between the cultures and beliefs of their homeland and those of Canada. In many of these situations, parents’ attempts to exert control over their children causes them to leave or even flee from the family home.

We have trained CAS-approved Muslim families in the London-Middlesex area to provide homes for children should they not be able to remain with their families. The children can remain connected with their community in this way.

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