(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - As anyone who’s ever hosted a meeting or gathering in Southeast Alaska can attest, if you want people to attend - not to mention participate - you’ve got to provide food. 

But for Ketchikan’s Women in Safe Homes (WISH) Family Services division, food’s importance cuts even deeper. Simply put: food heals families.

“When people nourish themselves better, they feel healthier, think better, problem solve better and react to stress better,” says Beth Bogarde, WISH Family Services Manager. “These things make a family cope with each other better.”

Obviously, there’s no closer relationship than family - in the communities that dot the Panhandle, the definition of “family” often extends to the broader kinship of an entire town or village (an idea United Way terms “Living United”). And food plays an integral part in defining family roles, rules and traditions. More than that, though, a steadily increasing number of the families served by WISH Family Services - 20 to 30 per quarter in Ketchikan and Metlakatla - survive on minimal sustenance.

“Honestly, the snacks we bring into the homes may be the only snacks the children get; the meals we provide may be the only ‘solid’ meal many of the adults will eat all day,” says Bogarde.

But make no mistake. While the nutrition component plays a part in all its services, WISH Family Services is not a food program, per se. WISH, itself, is a crisis intervention organization, providing shelter, support, advocacy and education for people impacted by domestic violence, sexual assault/abuse.

Several years ago, WISH Family Services division evolved out of a similar but far smaller program housed within the shelter. Today, WISH Family Services has branched out into two programs: Family Preservation Services and Time-Limited Reunification.

Through Family Preservation Services, WISH works with intact families to strengthen inter-familial relations, thereby reducing the likelihood of neglect and/or domestic violence. Working in the homes - some families, up to four times a week, for several hours at a time - WISH Family Preservation also offers help with employment, public assistance and educational opportunities.

“We talk a lot about functioning as a stronger family: positive discipline, how to alleviate tension in the home and, of course, nutrition,” says Bogarde, also noting the importance of parent-child activities to family harmony. “A family that has fun together, bonds together, and what better way to bond than preparing and sharing food together?”

The other half of WISH Family Services program, Time-Limited Reunification, serves families in which the children have been removed from the home.

WISH tries to facilitate reunification whenever possible, however it can. This includes closely following parents’ case plans and progress, transporting children to visitation and even supervising visits, in addition to meeting with parents one-on-one.

“It’s a very large job. We’re constantly thinking of ways to help every family we serve, and every family is different,” says Bogarde, explaining that this often entails helping families through medical, housing, public assistance and legal issues.

Preventative and long term in nature, WISH Family Services can work with family for a year or longer until it’s not only reunited, but stabilized.

“Our goal is to help families develop strategies so they don’t need us any more,” Said Bogarde. She adds, jokingly. “We’re working really hard to put ourselves out of a job.” 

WISH also conducts parenting seminars, both in Ketchikan and Metlakatla, open to the whole community. During these eight-week sessions, seminar leaders discuss such topics as childhood developmental stages, anger management strategies and parenting while in recovery for substance abuse. These seminars cover nutrition extensively - specifically meals.

In modern society, it’s quicker, easier and, sadly, less expensive to eat fast, processed food. But in the long term, we pay for that convenience with our health.

“Families don’t realize the importance of healthy food, and students don’t perform as well in school. Irritability increases, both in children and adults, at times, simply due to poor nutrition,” Bogarde says.

Not only does WISH Family Services provide the food, it also teaches recipes and preparation techniques, as well as strategies for weeklong meal planning and tips to stretch food budgets further.

Sometimes, Bogarde explains, it’s as simple as teaching families to try whole wheat crackers or celery with peanut butter, instead of white bread. It also entails staying abreast of available commodities.

“Suppose there’s a sale on brown rice,” she says. “We talk about various ways to use it as well as how to incorporate other ingredients you may have on hand.”

Of course, WISH Family Services also incorporates a particularly Alaskan practice into its nutrition education.

“Especially in Metlakatla, many people still subsistence fish, hunt and gather - these offer perfect opportunities for family strengthening and unity.”

Every eight-week parenting course ends with a graduation dinner, with a menu planned, cooked, served and shared by the graduates.

“When people go through the parenting class together, they share their thoughts on some pretty intense topics,” Bogarde says. “The dinner is another way of sharing.”

Now, all this food begs the obvious question: who pays for it? WISH Family Services relies almost entirely on grant funding through the State of Alaska, yet these grants make no provision for food.

Enter United Way of Southeast Alaska’s 2012 Community Impact Grant, awarded to ten non-profit organizations across the region.

“The meals and snacks we provide - and the Community Impact Grant pays for - make a huge difference,” says Bogarde. “Without the United Way of Southeast Alaska and the Community Impact Grant we wouldn’t be able to do any of it.”

By strengthening families, by extension WISH Family Services strengthens the whole community. This is a prime example of United Way’s “Living United” moment, whereby extending a hand to one improves society for all.

“United Way plays a vital role not only in our organization, but many other non-profit organizations in the community,” says Bogarde. “We’re all working together to cast as wide a social net as we can.”

Source of News:

“Healing Families by Feeding Families: WISH Family Services” appears courtesy of United Way of Southeast Alaska as part of a project profiling the achievements of its 2012 Community Impact Grant recipients. To learn more about “Living United,” the United Way of Southeast Alaska or any of its 35 partner agencies visit www.unitedwayseak.org.

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Ketchikan, Alaska

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