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Frank Cowan Company has revealed that it recently made a donation to a Waterloo-based charitable organization through its Cowan Foundation arm.
Family & Children’s Services of the Waterloo Region (FCSWR) received a total of $84,000 from Cowan, to help the former’s Trusting Loving Connections (TLC) group “meet the needs of Arabic-speaking refugees, First Nations, Metis and Inuit families, and French-speaking audiences,” a release said.
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“Our organization works with the majority of the members within the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, and we were looking for a way to support the important work they are doing,” said Frank Cowan Company president Larry Ryan.
“Together, with our Foundation, we approached Family & Children’s Services of Waterloo Region, and they shared information about the TLC program. Our donation will expand this program to other audiences in the Waterloo Region, and through partnership with OACAS will then be transferable to other members’ communities.”
According to data from the Immigration Partnership of Waterloo Region, over 40,000 Syrian refugees have arrived in Canada, with more than 1,800 of those refugees settling in the Waterloo Region since November 2015. The region is currently considered one of Canada’s top 10 Census Metropolitan Areas; by 2031 nearly a third of the population will be a visible minority.
“Many of these families are arriving with complex issues related to their health and wellness as a result of traumatic histories, compounded by the experiences of coming to a new country with rules and society expectations that may differ drastically from their countries of origin,” said Family & Children’s Services of the Waterloo Region executive director Karen Spencer. “The Cowan Foundation’s support for adapting this trauma and attachment program will make it possible for us to meet the needs of diverse populations in culturally appropriate ways.”
FCSWR’s TLC program is a “trauma-informed intervention that seeks to help caregivers gain an understanding of how their own childhood experiences and attachment relationships affect their parenting and relationships with their children.”
“The adapted TLC program has the potential to help men and women coming from other cultures understand the relationship and parenting norms and expectations of Canadian society and reflect their own histories and the impact this has on their parenting and their children,” a release explained. “It also helps them gain an increased understanding and trust in formal service systems.”
Cowan said that the second year of the grant will focus on working with the company’s indigenous partners to consider the possibility of adapting TLC to help understand intergenerational trauma, among other things.
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