R.I.S.K. SONOMA / A PARENT SUPPORT NETWORK
RESOURCES, INFORMATION, SUPPORT & KNOWLEDGE.
P.O. Box 651
Sonoma, CA 95476
An Inquiring Systems, Inc fiscally sponsored project EIN- 94-2524840
707-501-7691
About Us
As Parents, we all worry about our children. R.I.S.K. is an organization that was founded to help parents support other parents who are in need of a helping hand. R.I.S.K. is a non-profit organization started by parents who have faced challenges in raising their families. We provide Resources, Information, Support and Knowledge (R.I.S.K.) for parents who are seeking support and access to services that will help them to raise their families.
If you need help with your growing family, or if you have a child or teenager who is in serious jeopardy, R.I.S.K. is here to help. Contact us today for help. We have been in your shoes, and we have resources and a volunteer team of supporters to help you and your child. We can help you to change fear, worry and helplessness to support and healing.
My name is Leslie and I started R.I.S.K. with one single goal - pull parents, professionals, care givers and grandparents together to start a conversation about what is confronting those of us who are raising kids. As parents of two children, my husband Tony and I are committed to “paying it forward” after all of the support we received when we were confronting parenting issues with our teenager that changed our lives in only a few short weeks, about three years ago.
Tony and I learned that there are no easy answers but, through a series of trial and error with our own situation, we needed the resources and support to be knowledgeable about what our kids face everyday. We are no experts, but never gave up on our family or our child. One of the questions we asked ourselves many times, is how do you “parent” with so many different outside influences on our kids, once they walk out that front door each day? From the time they are little, we lay the groundwork for molding them into adults. Then they start to gain independence and that groundwork is tested and sometimes seems to crumble for some families. The best way I can explain to people about what we went through is that we were “deer in the headlights.” This was unchartered territory for us and it was scary. Sleepless nights, constant stress, the lack of communication with our child and the concern for a younger child at home, made for some very tough times. Seeking help was difficult and we hit a lot of dead ends. There were days that I wondered if we would ever find peace in our family again. We have made a lot of progress, but through it all, I have learned that we are not alone. Now our goal is to reach out to all families to help prevent what happened to our family or to help heal another family going through similar circumstances.
Through our efforts with R.I.S.K. we want to provide parents the support to know if what they are seeing is a phase or a problem, to know that there are many resources available to help them with whatever their child is dealing with, and to connect professionals, law enforcement, non-profits, educators and parents together to work together. And most importantly to remove the stigma of “a bad parent” when a child’s journey takes an unsafe path. As parents who have felt alone, judged and isolated, our hope with R.I.S.K. is to create the opportunity for change in attitudes. We need healthy, supported parents to be able to face the issues that confront our families and kids.