Parent Link Centre sees Numbers Grow with Expanded Service

The Cold Lake Parent Link Centre’s expanded hours are seeing substantial traffic through the facility.

“The extra hours we were able to add at Parent Link have been well received,” Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland said. “That’s a great success for this community because every hour spent at Parent Link is an hour that families are growing closer together.”

Cold Lake City Council passed the funding for expanded hours in the 2015 budget. The new hours of operation rolled out last May. The facility now runs a fall, winter and spring schedule that offers evening hours ending at 6:00 pm.

The hours are scaled back in the summer when demand declines.

“We were very happy for council’s support in expanding the service we are able to offer,” Kim Schmidtz, the Cold Lake and District FCSS Manager, said. “We were even happier to see how well received this has been by the public.”

The Cold Lake Parent Link Centre is on track for its busiest year to date with an expected 25,000-plus visits, up from an average of about 10,000 visits per year in previous years. In the six months from April to September 2015, the Parent Link Centre recorded almost 1,330 unique visitors. Of those, 550 were children between the ages of 0-5 years old, 163 were children 6-17 years old and 616 were adults.

“The increase in traffic is substantial and reflects not only the general demand in the community, but also the hard work our staff puts into exceptional programming,” Schmidtz said. “It has also been made possible by the support we’ve received when it has come to our new facility and the funding to increase our hours.”

The Cold Lake Parent Link Centre is located along with the Cold Lake and District FCSS at 5220 54 Street. Information on hours of operation and programs can be found at www.coldlake.com, or in the City of Cold Lake Program Guide, available in hardcopy at City facilities as well as online.

*Press Release from the City of Cold Lake