When Natasha Neveu gave birth to her daughter Adriana a year ago, she was barely 21 years old and had already dropped out of high school. A nurse from the CLSC Lac St. Louis visited her at her parents’ home in Pointe Claire soon after getting home from the hospital and told her about a program called Our Place.
AMCAL Family Services, the Pointe Claire-based non-profit agency, started Our Place in the northern Delmar section almost five years ago as a way to offer parents a place to visit and learn. On May 8, Our Place held an open house to inform new parents about the program.
“The objective is to support young parents that haven’t finished high school or CEGEP to help them get back in the work force when they’re ready,” said the program’s coordinator, Diane Marsland. “We also help parents who have moved to Canada within the last five years.”
Neveu said when the nurse visited her she wasn’t interested in joining the program. The nurse finally convinced her to get in the car to check out what the program had to offer.
“I wasn’t sure at first,” she said. “When I came the first day, they didn’t think I’d come back. I’m not really that type of person that would join a group. But I came back and I’m still here.”
AMCAL noticed that there was a need in the community for a parenting program.
“A lot of other places have a community centre in the neighbourhood whereas our CLSC goes from Ste. Anne de Bellevue to Pointe Claire so there is not a common building anywhere,” Marsland said.
The parents meet Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in an apartment on Delmar Avenue. While an animator plays with their children, the parents get a chance to chat amongst themselves, cook, or hear from guest speakers from around the community. Our Place has a grant from the CLSC Lac St. Louis and receives funding from different partners so the services offered to parents are free of charge.
For Neveu, the program, and Marsland in particular, helped her get back into high school. She said that she first dropped out of high school a few years ago because she was “corrupted.”
“I was pretty bad when I was younger,” she said.
Open House helped her get back on track and by going to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she was able to finish the courses she needed to graduate. Now she is just waiting to hear if she passed and then she says she’ll pick a trade and move forward.
Neveu is just one of the many parents that have succeeded under the Our Place program. And while not every parent decides to stay, the ones that do, find themselves in a comforting atmosphere where they can get away from the daily grind of life and meet people who are in the similar situations. The children may find playmates, but so do the parents.
More information about the program can be found at amcal.ca or by calling Diane Marsland at 514-694-3161 ext. 227.
