Workshop helps children develop coping skills during deployments

Military Family Resource Centre Instructor Tracy Beck looks on as her students (left) Avery, 7, Jordyn, 5, Sarah, 6, and Conrad, 5, hold up pictures of themselves during a deployment workshop at the Colwood Pacific Activity Centre.

Peter Mallett, Staff Writer

Discovering they’re not the only ones missing a parent on the home front is a giant step forward for young children coping with the deployment of a mother or father.

“Realizing this is half the battle for my students, especially the younger ones,” says Tracy Beck, Children’s Deployment Workshops Facilitator with the Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC).
Through shared experiences and a number of interactive activities, Beck says how students attending the weekly workshops at the Colwood Pacific Activity Centre are able to “relate” and thereby “validate” their wide-ranging emotions and feelings when their parents leave home.

“When they go to school the children quickly realize most of their classmates moms and dads aren’t away from home, but theirs are,” says Beck. “But when they come in here and see eight others in the same situation they quickly realize these feelings are a shared experience.”

Several of those attending the current workshops are children of parents deployed in Operation Reassurance aboard HMCS Winnipeg. On June 15, 2015, children and families of the crew gave their heart-felt, teary farewells to the crew before they headed to the Mediterranean for an eight-month, NATO-led mission.

Erin Goetz’s husband MS Jeffrey Snook is an engineer aboard Winnipeg. Her three daughters, Hayley, 3, Jordyn, 5, and Avery, 7, started attending the sessions last June. She says that although they miss activities such as camping and bike riding with their father, the workshops allow them to still feel connected.

“My youngest daughter Hayley initially felt anxious about participating in social activities while Jeffrey was away, but now she looks forward to seeing Tracy at the workshops each week,” says Goetz. “Feeling comfortable with the program has helped her adjust to other situations in life.”

As the weeks roll by, Beck helps the children put the physical realities of the deployment into perspective by plotting the progress of Winnipeg on a giant map of the world.  As the frigate stops in various ports of call, she teaches the children about the culture, geography and animal life in these nations to help them understand what their parent is experiencing.

During a recent class, the students created artwork and crafts that she will send to the ship. Beck noted they are also encouraged to bring with them any correspondence or items sent by their parent for show-and-tell presentations. From Australian boomerangs to lei flower necklaces (garlands) from Hawaii, Beck says the children truly delight in showing off their gifts and telling their peers what makes their parent great.  

Beck became a firm believer in the program’s merits through her own experience. The former military mother’s two daughters once benefited from the program while their father was deployed in 2000.
“That’s what really encouraged me to become an instructor in this program, when I realized this really does help ,” says Beck. “It’s hard for me to notice while I’m running the workshops, but a lot of parents have indicated the workshops help and they notice improvements in their child’s behavior at home.”

Interested parents still have time to register their children in the current round of workshops which began Jan. 5 and will run until mid February. The 75-minute sessions are broken into three age categories: three to five-years-old, five to eight, and nine to 12.

The MFRC also runs several programs for adults dealing with deployment. For more information go to their website www.esquimaltmfrc.com or contact them by phone at 250-363-2640.