More than 125 participants attended “Growing Up in Somerville,” the Somerville Family Learning Collaborative’s first night of health, wellness and parenting workshops for caregivers of Somerville children, birth to high school age. Families representing Somerville’s diverse community came together to share in learning about raising healthy children. The evening began with opening remarks from Somerville Public Schools Superintendent Mary Skipper, who highlighted the importance of focusing on the whole child.

Attendees could participate in nine different workshops on a variety of topics including “Raising Kids in a Digital, Plugged-in Age: No App for Life” presented by Joni Siani, author of Celling Your Soul: No App for Life; and “Raising Healthy Children: Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds” presented by Dr. Greg Hagan, Chief of Pediatrics at Cambridge Health Alliance. Other workshop topics included: raising children as an immigrant parent, parenting in the middle school years, mindfulness, substance abuse awareness, sex and sexuality, temperament, and raising an athlete.

“I appreciate the offering of these topics because they represent issues parents are really facing and concerned about,” commented one event participant.

“The range of offerings made it hard to choose,” added another attendee. “The availability of interpreters so that all families could participate made me proud to be a parent in Somerville.”

The event was a community-wide effort sponsored in collaboration with Cambridge Health Alliance, Somerville Community Schools, COPE, and the Physical Education Program (PEP).