Workshop to Focus on 'Helping Families in Tough Economic Times'

Robert Feikema of the Parental Stress Center in Pittsburgh will be the keynote speaker at a workshop Friday, April 24, called “Helping Families in Tough Economic Times.”

The workshop is free and open to the public. It will be held from 9 to 11:30 a.m. in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

The workshop is being co-sponsored by the McKean County Collaborative Board, the Northern Tier Community Action Corp. and the Pitt-Bradford master of social work program as part of their activities for Child Abuse Prevention Month. Also, as part of the groups’ activities the Children’s Memorial Flag is being flown at Pitt-Bradford to focus attention on violent child death in efforts to reduce child mortality.

The workshop will begin and end with a resource and networking fair to take place from 9 to 9:30 and 11 to 11:30 a.m.

Feikema’s talk on short- and long-term ways agencies can help families during changing economic times will take place from 9:30 to 10:15 a.m. and will be followed by a panel discussion of how these ideas might be implemented locally.

Feikema is director of programs and community initiatives at the Parental Stress Center, a child abuse prevention agency in Pittsburgh. His special interest is in poverty and the need for human service agencies to support people with low incomes, encouraging them to take a leadership role in changing community conditions. He helped establish the Citizens Leadership Initiative, a multi-agency collaboration that trains low-income individuals to become civic leaders on poverty-related issues.

Feikama will also help facilitate the discussion with the local panel, which will consist of Ken Straub, executive director of Northern Tier Community Action Corp.; Robin Kulek, a home economist with Penn State Cooperative Extension; Harry Solarek, chairman, McKean County chapter of Habitat for Humanity; and Lee Beckes of First Presbyterian Church, the Bradford Ministerium and The Friendship Table.

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