Stronger Threads is a local project aimed at strengthening parents who do not have a family support network in their immediate proximity and who are living and raising children in Brussels, Belgium or a nearby area.

The project provides support through direct interventions that are:

• tailored and responsive to the specific needs of each family,
• preventive to safeguard the physical and mental well-being of the parents and children.

In addition, the project aspires to develop the methods of providing support that leverage the power of the collective – and is a ground for experimenting with such approaches.

‘Stronger Threads’ wishes to address the unique challenges faced by parents who fall outside traditional family structures, addressing gaps in the existing support.

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The Stronger Threads project focuses on “parents in atypical situations” in Belgium, those who fall outside traditional family structures or face additional challenges. To fully understand this concept, it’s crucial to first define the typical family scenarios in Belgium.

1. Traditional Nuclear Family: A couple (typically a man and a woman) with 2-3 children. All family members are in good health and without disabilities. The family has sufficient means to cover both basic and aspirational needs. They are surrounded by a supportive family network in close physical proximity, capable of providing additional support when needed.
2. Amicable Separated Family: The same couple as above, but separated or divorced on relatively good terms, sharing childcare responsibilities 50/50 in two separate households.

Families that have such a structure are relatively well-served by Belgium’s educational system, childcare sector, labour laws, and other welfare and support services. Typically, their family networks can fill any gaps in the formal systems and provide support to mitigate challenges caused by the specificity of the Belgian labour laws.

Atypical families in Belgium are primarily defined by two core characteristics that differentiate them from typical family scenarios:

1. Weakened Support Network:
   • Weak or absent family support and/or social support networks
   • Good family support, but located partially or fully outside the country
   • A good social network but unable to fill the support gaps or decrease atypical parents’ mental load and task loading (defined as the cumulative effect of multiple responsibilities or tasks that a must be managed).
2. Challenging Family Structure:
   • Solo parents (full custody and financial responsibility for one or more children),
   • Parents of offspring in multiple births, or children very close in age.

Families that diverge from the typical scenarios face inherent challenges due to their weakened support network alone. It is intensified if the family structure is also atypical.

The vulnerability of atypical families can be further exacerbated by any one or several additional characteristics or challenges, including but not limited to:

Atypical families, as defined by their weakened support networks and challenging structure face inherent challenges in functioning within the Belgian educational and childcare system. The atypical status alone and the presence of any additional exacerbating factors have a significant impact leading to higher risks of:

• parental burnout
• increased need for psychological, medical, and pharmacological interventions
• acquiring new mental and physical health issues
• addiction to prescription drugs and other substances

The more exacerbating factors present in an atypical family, the more complex their needs become and the less adequate the formal support system in Belgium proves to be in meeting these needs.

Many support systems exist in Belgium, ranging from the standard educational and childcare offer, welfare and financial assistance and a wide assortment of non-profit organisations providing support to specific target groups. However, these systems often fall short of meeting the specific needs of parents in atypical situations. Current challenges include:

• Inadequate and uncoordinated support offerings,
• Narrow criteria and compartmentalised support,
• Limited access due to incompatible schedules or long waiting lists,
• Individualized focus that neglects social structures and networks,
• Failure to address the mental load and task loading (or even adding to it),
• Curative rather than preventive focus,
• Paternalistic rather than people-centred approaches to support.

For a more detailed analysis of the problems faced by parents in atypical situations vis-à-vis the existing support offer in Brussels see Annex 1 at the end of this article.

The ‘Stronger Threads’ project aims to address these gaps by providing targeted, flexible, and collective-oriented support to parents in atypical situations, to strengthen their social safety nets by weaving additional threads into it. Hence the project name ‘Stronger Threads’.

It aims to bridge the gaps in the support system by providing targeted, flexible and person-/family-centred support to parents in atypical situations. The project also recognizes the need to explore collective and community-based solutions. By addressing the multi-faceted needs, Stronger Threads project helps atypical families build resilience and improve their overall well-being.

Specific objectives include:

1. Promote mental and physical well-being by:
   • sharing effective burnout prevention methods,
   • developing solutions to decrease the mental load and task loading of parents in atypical situations.
2. Strengthen local support networks to address some of the challenges through community-based, collective-oriented (mutual support and exchange) solutions.

Stronger Threads employs a people-centred, collectivity-oriented and prevention-focused methodology:

People-centred

It follows the philosophy of Preben Brandt, a Danish psychiatrist and founder of the Copenhagen-based Projekt Udenfor for the city’s homeless, who emphasises the importance of placing the person at the centre of support and in the driving seat. The support is not pre-designed but co-designed with the people supported, emphasising the aspect of empowerment from the start.

For Stronger Threads project, this means putting the parent’s and children’s needs and well-being as the focal point around which the interventions are knitted and moulded. It acknowledges individuals’ expertise in their own lives and is open to creating new tools or developing solutions that can better respond to each specific situation.

Collectivity-oriented

At the same time, the project envisages to search for and experiment with solutions that are met not only through a model where an organisation provides help to someone in need, but also through strengthening reciprocal community ties.

In times when the social fabric has been ripped by the nuclearization of families, excessive digitalisation of life and treadmill of capitalism, the project will strive to develop collective approaches to solve overlapping challenges of parents who live in physical proximity.

Family of the heart or the “village needed to raise a child” is created by real-life interactions, decreasing reliance on electronic devices for social contact, and increasing help and exchange among people who are not biologically related but have either common or complementary needs and can either organise solutions collectively or exchange and support each other.

Thus, the project will focus on two, equally important, types of activities:

• A direct interventions that replace some of the missing threads in the support net,
• Interventions that aim to create cooperative ties to strengthen the safety net.

This approach also means that some project activities must be open to people other than atypical parents because strong social networks are heterogeneous.

Prevention-focused

Finally, the project focuses on prevention and safeguarding the mental and physical health of the parents in atypical situations and their children, rather than envisaging to act only when health is affected.

Through this methodology, the threads of an atypical parent’s social support net become thicker and stronger, creating a structure that makes them more resilient and safer, and guards their mental and physical well-being. These benefits are naturally passed on to children.

Stronger Threads currently focuses on investigating and offering the following activities:

1. Burnout Prevention:
   Breathing, somatic, music and art therapy workshops for parents in atypical situations that help safeguard mental and physical health
2. Mental Load and Task Loading Reduction:
   Brainstorming and experimenting with solutions for healthy meal preparation, solutions for ad-hoc responsive support during illness or incapacity (both parents and children), simplified access and eligibility.
3. Network Strengthening:
   Exploring the methods of facilitating the construction of local support networks and activities to create “families of the heart” based on proximity, shared needs and collectivity.

In Belgium, a variety of support systems exist, including thousands of front-line non-profit organisations, financial aid, affordable childcare and education and project-based activities. How is it then possible that parents in atypical situations find the support available insufficient or inadequate or struggle to access what’s available?

Key Challenges

Support services are delivered through a network of independent, subsidized non-profit organizations. Each organization operates with its own rules and criteria, typically within standard working hours.