PROSPER Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10-14 is an evidence-based parent, youth and family skills-building curriculum.

According to Linda Cline, program coordinator with Webster County Extension, more than 1,100 families have participated in the program since it was introduced in Fort Dodge 19 years ago. Up until 2019, the program focused on Fort Dodge students in sixth grade and their parents or caretakers. Now, the program has extended to include fifth-graders as well.

“(Strengthening Families) encourages families to have more communication skills, to talk to each other,” Cline said.

Each session of the program meets once a week for seven weeks at a local church. This fall’s sessions will be held at New Covenant Christian Church. Families also receive a small amount of money to attend the sessions.

-Messenger file photo by Kelby Wingert
Laura Stover, facilitator, acts out a peer pressure scenario with Charles Evans, then 10, during a Strengthening Families session at St. Olaf Lutheran Church in November 2019.

“In today’s very busy world, we barely spend five minutes in conversation with each other on any one given day,” program facilitator Laura Stover said last fall. “And how can we possibly know what our parents think is important for us to learn and what our goals are if we don’t spend deliberate time just sharing what’s going on in our life? And I think this program offers some opportunity for that every single week.”

Each week of the session focuses on a different topic or theme, like how to handle peer pressure or how to choose good friends or following rules and understanding family values. Families in the program must attend at least five of the weeks to “graduate” the program. Last fall, 39 local families graduated.

The fall sessions of Strengthening Families will start Oct. 11 and Oct. 12 for families with youth in fifth and sixth grades in the Fort Dodge area. Families can select Sunday afternoons from 2 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. or Monday nights from 6 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.

Each week of the program, the parents and kids start the first hour separated — the youth in one room working with two facilitators on that day’s lessons and activities, and the parents in another room with another facilitator viewing videos with their lessons. After a short snack break, the parents and kids come together for the final hour to bring their lessons together and learn skills to improve their communication and understanding of each other, strengthening their family unit.

“It’s like you’ve got a toolbox of new techniques you can use to problem-solve and work together to have less stress in your life and get along better,” Stover said.

-Messenger file photo by Kelby Wingert
Families work together during an activity at Strengthening Families at St. Olaf Lutheran Church in November 2019.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the program will provide only pre-packaged snacks. It will also be unable to offer childcare, Cline said, though families with young children will have the option to be reimbursed $10 per session for childcare.

Cline said that Webster County Extension and PROSPER is looking at likely limiting each session this fall to 10 families in each.

“Families will be asked to wear masks when they come in,” she said. “Everybody will have to sit the six-foot distance apart.”

Stover told The Messenger last fall how she’s seen firsthand the impact the Strengthening Families program makes.

“I just see that in my own children who went through it that it did make a difference. It really empowered them to say no and have a reason why they were saying no to being talked into doing something that wasn’t going to be good for them,” she said.

To register for the fall sessions of Strengthening Families, visit www.extension.iastate.edu/webster or call 515-576-2119.

To enroll

To register for Strengthening Families fall sessions, visit www.extension.iastate.edu/webster or call 515-576-2119.