The Fédération des parents francophones conducted a project between September 2016 and August 2017 with the objective of meeting with parents of teenagers in various regions of BC.

The project was intended to identify the needs and concerns of parents of young people attending Francophone secondary schools, in order to better equip and support them for some of the challenges they may face.

Several themes were explored, particularly with regard to personal, community, and province-wide perspectives.

As part of this project, a series of conversations with parents was held in six communities (Vancouver, Comox, Port Coquitlam, Kelowna, Victoria, and Surrey). Every BC region that has a Francophone school received an invitation to participate, and regions were selected based on the level of parents’ interest in the project.

The key themes that emerged from the conversations were quite varied; they included academic success, technology and social networks, bullying, drugs, mental health, activities for youth, and belonging to the Francophone community. Development of parenting skills and support for parents were also among the themes chosen by participants.

The project has helped to identify courses of action that could be undertaken by the Fédération des parents, in cooperation with community partners, as well as ways to respond to the needs expressed by parents. Some actions have already been undertaken, including:

• the development of a workshop on communication between parents and adolescents based on the book and resource “How to Talk so Teens Will Listen and Listen so Teens Will Talk”. The workshop will be offered to communities in the coming months;
• the creation of a tool that highlights the opportunities available to young people (activities, programs, etc.). This tool will soon be published online as well as circulated to our member associations;
• the addition of resources for parents of adolescents to the collection of books available through the Fédération des parents’ Tire-Lire resource lending centre (for example, books about the development of self-esteem in teens). Those resources are now available at www.tire-lire.ca.

It goes without saying that this project was just the starting point of our initiatives aimed at parents of adolescents; these initiatives, to be carried out over the coming years, demonstrate the Fédération des parents’ leadership in this area. Indeed, other Francophone parents organizations elsewhere in Canada have shown interest in learning more about how our project unfolds and the results it achieves.

The complete, detailed project report, including the essence of the conversations with parents of adolescents, is now available (in French only) on the Fédération des parents website, at: www.fpfcb.bc.ca/conversations-avec-les-parents-du-secondaire.

This project was made possible thanks to the support of the Government of Canada.