Family Advantage! program
The Family Advantage program focuses both on sustainable gardening and cooking, and on family education. This dual focus comes from FETCH's belief that families thrive when members work to achieve common goals and participate in constructive, enjoyable activities together. In the past, families had many opportunities to work and play together. However, in our current society, family members are seeking fulfillment away from home through work, school and extracurricular activities. Family life, in busy, achievement-driven cultures, often consists of members returning home, late in the day, tired out from hectic days in pressured settings. Under these conditions, ALL family members typically hope to receive some care from the others. This is an equation for disappointment and stress for all. In our programs, we hope to evenly distribute family and home responsibilities among all members of the family (according to their abilities), show families how to work together to achieve these tasks, encourage families to let go of unnecessary outside-the-home obligations, and encourage family members to spend greater leisure time together.
5:00PM - 6:00PM: Family Farm Time & dinner preparation
At the start of the evening, families are given the opportunity to work on their family grow beds together. This specific hour provides family members the time to work together to accomplish the common goal of nurturing the flowers and produce seeds they have chosen and hope to eventually harvest, at the end of the semester. Program Manager, Norman Tansey leads families in amending the soil, choosing crops, seed in the nursery, transplant seedlings, weed, deal with insect and slug pests and remedy plant nutrient deficiencies. After tending to their grow beds, family members can also assist FETCH staff in the dinner preparation by harvesting, cleaning and chopping produce from the farm. Children and parents learn skills in sustainable gardening, are exposed to a wide array of cultural dishes and above all, learn positive ways to communicate and relate with each other in order to achieve a common goal.
6:00PM - 7:00PM: Curriculum hour
At 6:00, parents attend Parent Advantage, a parenting seminar, while children attend Youth Advantage, a social skills program. Parent Advantage is taught by Linda Perry (a parenting instructor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and former educator and principal of Hoala school) and Lisa Chun-Fat (a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist). At the same time, children meet in a second classroom to participate in the Youth Advantage program.
The Parent Advantage sessions, also called the “Communication Club” focus on Adlerian parenting psychology and consists of a video lesson, role-playing and discussion time for the parents to share their parenting struggles and experiences, as well as provide support for each other. Various topics that are discussed include the difference between encouragement and praise, enabling versus empowerment, how to establish rules, expectations and boundaries, and how to raise emotionally strong and resilient children.
During the Youth Advantage children complete crafts activities related to nature, gardening, or being “contributing members” of their families. Children practice self-reflection, mindfulness and group cooperation, and learn how to belong in peer and family groups by contributing, rather than by demanding attention or expecting services from others.
In week 6 of the semester, families gather together in one space to complete a Family Together Activity during the curriculum hour. Examples of these activities are family affirmations, a family chore chart, a family values tree, creation of emotions chart and a family discussion on emotions. These activities provide family members the opportunity to have critical conversations on what is important to them as a family and to truly “know” and “see” each other through their sharings.
7:00PM - 8:00PM: family dinner time & clean-up
At the end of the curriculum hour, all family participants and staff go through a buffet-line and regroup in the conference room to eat a garden-sourced meal of a chosen culture for the week. Families are invited to dine together, enjoy each other’s presence and share what they learned during the curriculum hour. Following dinner, all participants and staff assist with clean-up of the dining area and conference room; families complete the chore they had signed-up for for that evening. This stems from the belief that people belong to their families and communities by contributing, according to their abilities.
