Partner Spotlight: Mississippi Families for Kids

It’s not often you learn something from a puppet. And yet, at Shoestring’s Camp Reconnection, that is exactly the type of imaginative teaching that happens when it comes to our social and emotional education programs. Every other morning, our campers have sessions with Mississippi Families for Kids and learn about emotional regulation, calming themselves down, and how to handle overwhelming feelings and stressful experiences.

One tool MFFK uses is a ventriloquist puppet named Wallie. Wallie sometimes chats with our campers about what he does when he feels a certain feeling, like anger or grief. (Wallie, as it turns out, likes to take deep breaths.) During these sharing sessions, our first and second graders in the classroom tell Wallie and their teachers their own approaches, like asking people to leave them alone, crying, or yelling. After Wallie “listened” to our campers, he led the class in a deep breathing exercise and went over mindfulness activities. These sessions are just a small example of what MFFK does in partnership with us in our quest to help our kids heal from the aftereffects of trauma and from the pandemic. 

Mississippi Families for Kids was established as a nonprofit in 1998, and was originally created as an adoption placement organization. In 2009, they began expanding into other services like mental health resources and began partnering with organizations like Operation Shoestring. MFFK is primarily focused on children with disabilities or mental health diagnoses, and helps families, schools, and other places of support best address the needs of these children through clinical services and curriculum. Much like Operation Shoestring, MFFK is all about wraparound services that support a family’s members through all their stages of life. From prenatal mothers to Pre-K, MFFK and Operation Shoestring’s decade-long partnership is built upon a shared commitment to empowering all families to live a healthy and secure life.

Through group counseling sessions and individual therapy appointments, MFFK helps Operation Shoestring build and improve social-emotional skills for families in our neighborhoods inside and outside the classroom. Additionally, the organization serves as a referral partner for children suspected of having an undiagnosed emotional, behavioral, or academic issue, and helps Operation Shoestring get them the support they need to succeed. During the school year, MFFK works specifically with our 4th and 5th grade participants in our afterschool program by having group sessions focused on topics like peer pressure, bullying, teamwork, and conflict resolution. 

As we’ve heard from parents in our community, the need for emotional and mental health support has never been greater than it has been during the pandemic. Operation Shoestring is committed to supporting families so that they can have a healthy, happy, and fulfilled life. As second grade camper Elijah says of his sessions with MFFK: “They help me learn how to talk to myself, how to be nice to my brain.”

Find out how you can support these mental health initiatives.