Children’s Cottage Society opens new Child and Family Centre in northwest Calgary

After 10 years of planning and two years of construction, the Children’s Cottage Society opened its new Child and Family Centre in northwest Calgary on Wednesday.

The non-profit organization provides support services to families, parents and children who are in crisis.

The demand for the services offered by the Children’s Cottage Society has grown, as families continue to struggle with the growing cost of living.

Staff at the Children’s Cottage Society say in the past, they have had long wait-lists and have had to turn people away. But the new facility means they will be able to help even more Calgary families.

The new centre will act as a hub for multiple social service agencies to respond to the needs of parents and children who are in crisis.

“These are hard times for parents,” said Danielle Ladouceur, CEO of the Children’s Cottage Society.

“It’s difficult to raise a family and when the economic circumstances are difficult as well, that puts a lot of pressure on families. We are all about free services. We also help families explore options to become more financially stable, better able to make use of their resources, better able to connect to supports that are available in the community to help them be financially stable, make sure that their basic needs are met and that they have hope for the future.”

The new 35,000-square-foot centre in the Montgomery neighbourhood will allow the organization to expand its services to an additional 3,000 children and families each year.

The centre includes a crisis nursery, which will provide space for 20 more children in need of crisis respite care.

Mental health services will also be offered, along with a dedicated elders’ room and a healing room. The centre will also allow for expanded child development programs, such as literacy, speech assessment and nutrition.

The facility will be home to Calgary’s first Hope’s Cradle — a safe infant surrender site that allows people to safely and anonymously surrender their child at a secure location if they feel they cannot care for them.

“It is the first safe surrender site in Calgary and it’s the difference between life and death for a desperate parent who cannot keep their infant and needs to bring their infant somewhere,” Ladouceur said.

“The alternatives up until now have been very unsafe and some children have not survived. So having Hope’s Cradle and a safe place for babies to come gives them the opportunity for a future they might not have otherwise had.”

Hope’s Cradle will open later this month.

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