First, breathe.

The advice goes both to a parent worried for the welfare of their hungry child, or the case manager anxious over how to help them rise. You have to connect yourself to life’s oxygen mask.

This is where the training began in First Call’s recent work with LINCWorks case manager-life coaches. That’s because children whose lives are shadowed by the current or past addictions of adults will depend on the mental health of their caregivers and their supporters.

First Call:

• firstcallkc.org

• 24/7 Crisis Hotline: 816-361-5900

LINC:

• kclinc.org/help

• Help resource line: 816-410-8366

“We all have a history,” said LINCWorks case manager Lisa Barner. “You have to make sure you see (each other) in that light.”

The pandemic has intensified the demands on First Call — a Kansas City non-profit giving direct help and referrals for individuals and families stressed by addiction — and on LINCWorks, which provides coaching, support and employment training to parents who are receiving federal assistance for needy families.

Now they are helping each other carry on their missions.

First Call’s training — How to care for youth impacted by a loved one’s use of substances — will help LINCWorks’ teams better understand their families’ needs, said Janet Miles-Bartee, LINC Caring Communities Administrator.

“We need to do whatever we can to support children and families,” she said. “It’s such an asset to be more empathetic and understand the triggers families have . . . We want to work a little bit more from the heart.”

The training is strengthening the work of case management that is increasingly “family focused,” said LINCWorks Director Dawn Patterson. It’s “training the trainers . . . to work with the adult, to work with their children . . . (and) to look at your own life.”

The work is urgent, said Megan Keller, trainer and the head of First Call’s Family Services Team. The increased stress on the community is measured in many ways, she said, including calls to First Call’s 24/7 crisis line.

“We are getting more mental health calls,” Keller said. “More crises are going on. More suicidal ideation.”

LINCWorks case managers have seen how the pandemic has darkened the road back for many parents who want to get their households off of state assistance, Barner said.

“It’s harder now,” she said. “It’s harder to look for a job. Many of their kids are at home now (with schools being online) and they’re having to be mini-homeschools. Bills are piling up on them.”

Addiction history, which courses through so many households, can add a serious threat to the mix. The training emphasizes the vulnerability of children, teaches warning signs and offers a generous way of thinking in reaching out to children and to the parents who have vulnerabilities of their own.

LINCWorks case manager Samantha Lund can now frame her understanding with children in fractured homes by “the Five C’s.”

I didn’t cause it.

I can’t control it

I can’t cure it

But I can care for myself

by learning to cope with my feelings.

“These kids have been dealt a hand of cards,” Lund said. “We can help them learn to adapt rather than taking the burden” of the misplaced belief “that it is their fault.”

The parents Lund and other case managers help range in age from teenagers to those in their mid-40s, she said. Some of them have addiction-scarred childhoods.

“You don’t know if the parents ever had the conversation, if they grew up in a household where their parents used alcohol to cope,” Lund said. The training helps give the case managers an approach to help “take the stigma away,” she said.

LINC established LINCWorks in 2010 when LINC was contracted by Missouri to operate the Missouri Work Assistance program that supports families in the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

Miles-Bartee and Keller said LINC and First Call will also begin giving the training to LINC’s Caring Communities site coordinators to help them as they continue reaching out to support families in LINC’s partner school districts.

In many cases, Barner said, the parents are trying to overcome a generational cycle to build better lives for their children.

“Addiction and how it affects the family is a disease,” Barner said. The training will help the case managers build a vision for the parents of “what recovery looks like for the children . . . but also for that adult.”

Getting there may mean starting with simple self-care steps, like rising 10 minutes earlier to take time to quietly soak in a hot bath, getting outside for a walk, or call on a family member or friend — for both the parent and the case manager, Barner said.

Keller in the training likened it to the advice of the flight attendant if the plane were to be in trouble. Secure your oxygen mask first, then turn to your child.

And breathe.

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer