Soon-to-be and new mothers will hopefully have a long-term place to stay in Cochrane. The Pregnancy Care Centre is launching a $3-million capital campaign to raise funds for a new facility which would include a shared maternity home and independent living suites. Laurell Pederson, executive director, said the centre has been renting in Cochrane for the last 25 years and as part of its quarter-century anniversary, it hopes to buy space to grow the program. “We’d love that if we could all be in one location. There’s a lot of synergies with being together around staffing and client care and things like that,” Pederson said. The maternity home, expected to be 3,500-sq.ft, will be a communal living facility attached to the program centre, anticipated at 2,500-sq.ft. The apartment units, another 2,500-sq.ft, which will also be part of the program centre, will be subsidized and offer women more independence. When clients have “graduated from the program, they can move into their own homes separate from the centre. Currently, Pederson and staff help mothers facing unplanned pregnancies by showing them the possible next steps. With a new building, Pederson said the women, and potentially their partners, will be able to move into the maternity home or the independent suites. The length of stay will be on a case-to-case basis with clients choosing when they wish to leave. Pederson said the home will also be a safe haven for mothers vulnerable to abuse, poverty or other challenges so they can provide a healthy start for their newborns. “We’re looking at the first thousand days. So brain science is uncovering the amazing groundwork that is laid down in the first thousand days from conception to age two,” Pederson said, explaining that children are more likely to be confident and feel safe when they have been shown these traits since birth. Staff at the centre’s live-in facilities will provide parenting guidance for new mothers and their partners. “For some of our clients, their parents and extended family were either unavailable or unequipped. They may have experienced the death of one or more parents or had multiple foster care placements or other types of broken attachments, trauma and adverse experiences. They want to be good parents but they need to have that taught and modeled for them,” Pederson said. Each family living in the maternity home or independent suites are anticipated to be responsible for a subsidized rent, which will be a certain percentage of their income. “It’s not just a roof but supportive housing for women who are having children,” Pederson said. “That will also help them learn how to budget and to wade into being on their own and to manage their budgets.” The staffed maternity home will have the capacity to accommodate six families while four independent suites can hold one family each. A location for the facility has not yet been determined. Pederson said the Care Centre is working on partnering with any programs in town where there may be overlap in services including the future women’s shelter, Big Hill Haven. “There may be situations where our clients require additional security of a women’s shelter ... we don’t think we would replace each other.” Pederson said. “We see the need and we’re casting a vision and we’re excited and confident that the response in the community will be positive.” The first event for the campaign, A Place to Call Home, will be a dessert evening this weekend on Nov. 16 at the Frank Wills Memorial Hall. Speakers include staff from Red Deer’s Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre, which recently opened its own live-in maternity home and suites. Doors open at 6:30 and the program will begin at 7 p.m. Tickets are $40 and available online at www.cochranepreg.com/news-and-events or call (403) 932-2900 for more information. “We’re laying the groundwork for the next 25 years,” Pederson said.
