Raising the Children Program in Memory of Lorraine Kenny (1955-2010)
Honouring those whose journey on this earth is over is an important traditional value respected by First Nations. When Lorraine Kenny's work was completed on this earth, her family decided to honour her memory by making the Raising the Children Native Parenting Training Manual available online so everyone could benefit from her work.
The Raising the Children Program works with Aboriginal parents to ensure the happiness and well-being of their children. The training manual was first published in 1994 and continues to be an important resource for Aboriginal parenting facilitators across Canada. The manual provides a gateway to understanding and appreciating the resiliency of First Nation people and their strong relationship to this land that they refer to as Turtle Island.
The program is a response to the need for culturally appropriate parenting material for people who grow up in Aboriginal communities. Many Native people living and working in remote First Nations suffered through residential school experiences, and their children are being raised in an atmosphere where racism and other negative attitudes are common. Raising the Children provides a parenting training experience with information that can be applied in their lives.
As one First Nation leader states in the manual, "Using the inner strength of our people, we can insist that we want to have a say in the lives of our children. We want to be able to give them every opportunity they need, so that they can become healthy, useful citizens of society. We can take a pro-active approach, rather than waiting for somebody else to come along and do it for us. We as parents have to take the initiative and start doing the basic work that is needed to lead us to a more healthy family lifestyle."
As stated on the web site, Lorraine Kenny’s family wants to help Native families “by providing an open access manual for facilitators and teachers, all of whom are welcome to be partners in our work of helping parents and children.Together we have been using this program and learning with and from parents since 1990.”
The web site provides a virtual meeting place where teachers, parents and facilitators can meet to learn from each other and to continue to develop the program.
The Raising the Children Program is dedicated to the late Lorraine Kenny (1955 - 2010) who developed and wrote the program in partnership with many colleagues, parents, communities, and her family.Click here to find Sioux Lookout on Google Maps.