 Hi, welcome to the Think Tech Hawaii studios. I'm Lisa Kimoran, the host of Family Affairs, here to talk about all of the programs, the policies, and the information that helped make Hawaii a safer, happier, healthier place for families. With me today, I have a couple of guests to talk about a really important program for new moms, Liana Lam and Elyse Noe. Welcome to the show. Thanks. Thanks for having us. Absolutely. Liana, tell me a little bit about how Pico Pals began. What is Pico Pals? What is Pico Pals? Pico Pals is a new parent support program that connects and it builds community. It also, I don't know, it just, it, yeah. 12 weeks of new parents support. Thank you, thank you. Yes, it offers, it's a program with 12 weeks of new parents support. We meet every week for two hours and we slowly help facilitate and build relationships and our group leaders also mentor the new parents and just kind of normalize everything as they transition. And it's not only specific to moms, it's also just all new parents, so we also have fathers involved as well. Would you say that it's a support group or what kind of, what kind of setting is it? You know, it's not officially a support group, but everybody finds so much support through the friendship and community building. I think of it more as just holding space for connection because new parenthood can be really, really isolating and so there's a lot of camaraderie, a lot of friendship, a lot of rallying and encouraging that kind of helps people get over that hump. And as I guess since we have a lot of facilitated discussion about all things that new parents go through, it just people find a lot of things in common with each other and a lot of connection. And through that we have, I guess organically there ends up being a lot of support, but I wouldn't say it's like support with a therapist or a counselor specifically, but as you and I know we both find support through friendship. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's a program offered through Healthy Mother's Healthy Babies and there's a variety of topics that are discussed. What kinds of things come up for people or what can they expect in the setting? Oh, let's see. So some of the topics we spend time talking about would be feeding our baby, whether it's nursing, whether it's breastfeeding or bottling, like it's all accepted. We talk a lot about sleep. A lot about sleep throughout all of the program. Totally universal. Absolutely. We talk about career and balancing our family life and our work life. We talk a lot about relationships with our partners and our extended family and childcare and gosh, you name it, we talk about it. And we also create space within the two hours that we spend to just talk about whatever is going on that week. Because you never really know what you're dealing with until you're dealing with it. So we create space for that as well. Great. We'll put some pictures up on the screen so people can see what a group looks like, but Elise, what has your experience? Tell us what you've done as far as getting involved with Pico Pals. Yeah, so I joined Pico Pals as a new mommy and really loved it. Like you're saying creating space, like it was just like I found it so supportive and empowering as a new mom to show up and see what other moms, how they get through their day and how they're managing and dealing with this whole change of your world. And so Pico Pals was like, I looked so forward to it every Wednesday and just loved it. And I honestly don't even really remember a lot of it from, you know, because it was just like to get out of the house and to see other adults and misery and celebrate all these things that happen as a new mom. So I was the member, you know, through that. And then I've now transitioned to the other side of it as a leader. Yeah, and I really have loved it. It's a different experience, a different way to support and create an environment for those mommies. Yeah, but my original interaction with Pico Pals was using it as my way to enter the world of parenthood. Yeah, absolutely. Your son Austin is in some of those photos that were up there. How old was Austin when you guys first started? I think he was four months old. So he wasn't the oldest baby. He wasn't the youngest baby. But he was right in the middle. He was the biggest baby though. He was always the biggest. But yeah, and it was great for him because I felt better supported and felt more confident for him. And then as he's gotten older and they start to interact, he's now has other babies his age. He can, you know, look around with and interact with. Yeah. And what have you seen now becoming a group leader? What is that experience like for you? It's totally, it's totally different. And so we had spoke when I first started, you know, it's about creating an environment where other moms can get the support. So when I was participating in as just a regular participant, it was about finding support for myself. And now it's about creating an environment where other moms can create those connections, which was a really interesting transition for me and really something that I learned a lot from. And yeah, I just, I really want to create something that they can make those friendships and they can support each other and they can feel like they're heard and that they're not, you know, alone because it is really isolating. And there's some issues that come up or things that come up that, you know, other people just don't know. So I understand or can't, I can't understand because they haven't gone through it yet. And so being able to say like, oh, this experience has been super hard for me. How has it been for you and letting them kind of foster that has been so nice. The tagline is parenting with Aloha together. So Leanna, what does that mean exactly? I think of, well, I feel like the new parenthood position is such a sacred space for us. And it's such a beautiful place where where we're open to new ways of thinking because our whole world, you said, is like turned completely upside down. And I look at that as an opportunity to teach people how to love, how to connect and how to have like just to live Aloha and just to live a lot of love. And if well, and and our group leaders, we train our group leaders to really try to facilitate and hold this space and celebrate the diversity, celebrate everyone's voice, encourage moms to trust their own intuition and and I mean, I could go on about that. But it's so so because of like, it just creates a really nice environment to cultivate love and Aloha. I think one of course, the idea of togetherness, connection, community, it's a 12 week program. But all of our group leaders know that in the beginning, the very first week, everyone's really nervous. And and we kind of it's human nature just to feel like the other in a new situation. And you kind of size up people and and automatically you'll see like, what do you have in common? What is different? And then as the weeks progress, and people keep showing up in the layers, just keep getting peeled away. And you start seeing people acknowledge in each other's experience, like, Oh, my baby, that's here. Oh, my husband's driving me crazy. Or like, Oh, my wife worries about that as well. And then slowly you see the the group or just the connections start to form and the relationship getting deeper and deeper. And it's so beautiful. So I really feel like so back to that that are are saying of learning to parent with Aloha together. It's it's all of that there's Aloha and then the togetherness. Oh, and also that you get to see other people's ways of doing. And you also realize that your initial judgments or just preconceived notions about people were totally off. And then that lesson becomes a part of you. So that when you meet people from like just a stranger, you might have a certain thought, but you know, you could be completely off. And what you see now is a result of some long journey that they've had of all these experiences. So it can actually get kind of deep and life changing. But it also provides a lot of support for those sleep this night. We were just trying to get out of the house. There's a camaraderie. You made it. You had a screaming baby in your car and you still made it. Yeah. And so all of that's there and it's very beautiful as a group leader to watch. Yeah, that sounds great. Let's talk a little bit about what that isolation factor feels like for new parents. Yeah. Can you at least describe that situation for yourself? Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a couple things one, you're just physically so exhausted. And you're what however your delivery went, you know, there's all this that comes with it. And so you feel uncomfortable stepping outside sometimes you don't your body isn't what it was before, you just you don't know how to dress yourself. There's that aspect. And then there's the other aspect of, you know, you hear all this stuff about, should you take your baby out? Should you not? Should you do this? Should you not? And so you get some anxiety about leaving your house to some extent. And so I know some moms the first meaning for pico pals the first time they've gone out by themselves, other than a doctor appointment, which is, you know, a really big deal for them. And for them to come out and see that other moms are out is very empowering for them to be able to like, Okay, I can leave my house little steps at a time. And that's so important, not just for you, but for the baby. And so, you know, but yeah, there's so many things physically, emotionally that are keeping you at home. And you just, you're just trying to get one day at a time, right? And so this just gives you another thing to look forward to and opportunity to see other people doing it. Yeah, there's so many and people have different experiences, you know, some people feel really isolated because they're trying to breastfeed and they're not and they feel bad about that or their bottle feeding and they're worried about being judged or they're trying to breastfeed in public and they're worried about being judged for that. So this creates an environment where it's like a baby step out into the rest of the world for some women, because it is, they don't quite feel comfortable in their own skin sometimes. And so I found some of my mommies coming out, I was so happy to hear that this is our first time, but we feel really good after it. I'm like, Oh, that's great. You know, like, that's so wonderful. Now, you know, they feel more confident each time. You know, what kinds of changes do you tend to see with your groups? The same kind of confidence. There's definitely a lot of uncertainty and like, not as confident in the beginning. And then as time goes by, and they, everybody just encourages each other. It's like in the beginning, it's me and I model it. And that's partially not because other people aren't capable. They're just, they're just uncomfortable themselves. And then we realize we're all kind of nervous. And we just acknowledge it. And then with the camaraderie, they all start supporting each other. And it becomes so beautiful. Because new parenting is super isolated. When I had our first, and I guess I didn't really answer your question because I was a little nervous about this whole thing texting, but why we founded it. And it was because at least I felt really passionate about you because I did not have a group with my first child. And I lived in Kanyuhi and and you would think that because I'm local, I'm like, fifth generation grown up in Hawaii, my parents are still here. You think I have an advantage. I went to high school here. I have my high school pals, deep bonds with these people, but they're all working right now. And at the time, none of them had children. And so they were busy living their childless lives, which there's nothing wrong with that. They just don't know what it's like. And so when I would talk to them about things, they just couldn't understand. And we keep mentioning the word connection and relationships. And I just had a hard time connecting with people. And it just made me feel a little bit more queasy, even with my longtime best friends. It's just, it's not the same. And it took me a really long time to to build my own group of moms, my own group of supportive moms. And I felt so fortunate because I'm pretty extroverted and I'm very friendly. And I would think, man, if it's taken me like a whole year to build this and then some, what about everybody else? And then when you see how beautiful the strength of a relationship is and the part of community like, oh, we need this forever. And so with our second, and then that's when I met the other co founders, because we're all in something similar to a Pico Pals group at the time. Not as intentional, but in the same sense where we held space for each other. And we got to experience it. And once you, it's kind of like this like secret sauce of community, like once you experience that level of connection, it's, it's so magical. And it's like, how do we bring this experience to other people? Because if I was feeling isolated under my conditions, like, oh, man, not that I'm so amazing, but I could only imagine what other people are feeling. Yes, there's so many people here recently. You know, we're going to talk a little bit more about this. We're going to talk about the philosophy. We're going to take a quick break. Thank you. Come back to us. I'm Lisa Kimmer, a host of Family Affairs, and we'll be back in just a minute. Hey, Loha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii, airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that, you know, may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters, Loha. Hello, hi, Mabuhay. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson, inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii. With Think Tech Hawaii, we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch for our mission of empowerment. We aim to enrich, enlighten, educate, entertain, and we hope to empower. Again, Maraming, Salamat po, Mabuhay, and Aloha. Hi, welcome back to Family Affairs on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Lisa Kimura, the host and I'm here today with Alyssa Noe and Liana Lam talking about a really transformational program for new parents called Pico Pals. Liana, we were starting to talk a little bit about the research and how a program like this really helps impact people's relationships and their ability to bond with others and bond with their baby. Can you talk a little bit about that? Totally. Let's see, there's there's a lot of emerging research coming out right now, especially, and they even tie it to neuroscience and like the way brain formation is going and the way your brain can grow, but there's a lot of research that's identifying this epidemic of loneliness. You probably hear a lot about, you might even feel it in your own lives. Like in the evenings, we zone out on our personal devices, you can be in bed with your partner, but not connecting out just on your device and on your device until you're too tired to even connect and then you just go to sleep. And that's all a missed opportunity and so a lot of people think that they are connected to each other digitally through Facebook and whatnot, but we really are not. I've read a lot of studies, yeah, I'm kind of a geek like that, but one that stands out most to me is they were measuring people's levels of connection in different modes of interaction. So one was face to face, which got the highest ratings. The second rating was on the phone and I think you don't have the visual, but you still have like the intonations in your voice and you're still receiving a variety of, I guess, communication and then there's a steep drop all the way to digital communication. So you might be on a group text, even text messaging where it's like me sending directly to you, but the buzz that you get is significantly lower than in person or like on the phone. Interesting. So once I read that one it's like, oh gosh, that's what people, like I feel like people palses in response to things like that, like a war against loneliness, if you will, but it's like we need face to face, two hours a week, seeing people. There's also other research about friendship, or even just any healthy relationship, there's three factors. It's positivity. So you feel good when you're talking with someone and I think like in Pico Pals we have ground rules about no judging, the group leader models that compassion, that engagement, just the active listening and connection. So there's positivity, there's consistency and frequency, so it's like you have to see the same people over and over and over again and what's really beautiful about that is that builds trust, because I don't know if you've ever felt where like you kind of showed up and you met somebody and then like you feel like you misspoke or you went off topic or you messed up in the beginning of think tech when talking or whatever it is, like you just feel we're human and we're awkward, but if that same person continues to show up and and they say, hey come come back I want to see you again over and over and over again, you realize like oh they trust me, like this is a safe space, they accept me, and then the last one is intimacy or connection or vulnerability depending who you subscribe to, but the idea that you can be yourself and have that super super safe place where you can say what you're thinking without fear of judgment, you can you can have courage and it's just and that's like the golden place to be. So any healthy relationship has those three factors, it's the positivity, the frequency consistency, and the intimacy, if you have all of that then then you have healthy relationships. So that's what we try to build in PicoPals, very intentionally, the way our curriculum is, the way we facilitate, the way we train our group leaders, we spend a lot of time showing them how to build those conditions. Fantastic. What would you say for someone who says, ah I have enough friends, I've got family here, I don't need a group like that, what would you say? So I think it depends, because it's definitely, I mean sure it's not for everybody, it's not like a one size it's all, but I do think that especially with your first pregnancy and your second because there's all these new things, I personally don't know those yet, but I'm sure I will someday, but it's just you don't really hate to use the phrase you don't know until it happens to you, but there are these things that you just, you know even with your best friends who don't, like you said, who don't have children, sometimes you just, I don't know, it's just they, it's camaraderie that they just don't necessarily understand, and so you know I always say just give it a try and like be open-minded, you know, give it a try, because you just, you don't know and some people really participate, like they talk a lot during the group and that's great, they you know they really want to say things and get things out there and there's some who just want to sit back and listen and that's their connection that they're building and so you don't need to, there's not a specific person who needs to be in this group and so I always recommend to my friends just check it out and try it um trying to be unbiased as a leader but you know because there's different ways to get support out of the group some people need a place to talk, some people need a place to just get out of the house, some people need a place to see other babies and let their babies see other babies, so it's you can get different things out of it and that's kind of what I say to people and like I said it's not for everybody but I think that you can there's more opportunity there than people realize, that's what's so valuable about it, you can get what you and you know if you participate you never know what you're gonna get you know so that's what I tell someone if they thought you know just try it for you what would you say is the most the best thing that you've gotten out of it, whether participating or now leading a group, um the best I mean I guess the support and the friendships is really the big thing that I got out of it and knowing that how eager moms are other parents are to make those connections, so many times people are just like you're a mom let's be friends and it kind of becoming a mom parent kind of takes that away sometimes like you don't want to like I don't know how to say it you don't want to like oh do we want to be friends you're like you want to be my friend because we need we need support and so that support was what I got and then the other thing which is totally just me but becoming part of this community with the healthy mothers healthy babies the pico pals like it really sometimes you lose what am I going to do right now like right now I'm kind of working per diem and I'm with baby a lot and what am I going to do and this just gave me a whole new community to be part of and I like really it's been really lovely for me so that was something aside from the group that I got but you don't know what you're going to find you know so for me that was this community and the support with a really just the best lovely yeah Leanna when pico pals first started what kinds of things did you feel like we're lacking like did you look at what was out there or what was the process wow yeah um I looked I looked a lot um you know there were there were some there were very few new new parents support groups or I guess I should but like uh like classes or anything like very few that it seemed like a lot of it was focused on childbirth um the preparation for natural childbirth and then breastfeeding classes yeah but then the actual and and then and then there was seem to be a desert of sorts like a gap and then there seem to be classes for maybe when your kids are like six years and older about and that's more like activities that sing with baby how do we be with baby how do we encourage babies brain growth which is all valuable and really important but um it wasn't so much like how do you nourish the mom or the or the parents for that matter how do you how do you nourish them and support them so they can find their way and hone their parenting philosophy and learn how to trust their own intuition and instinct yeah that that um I do think that there are some work for special needs groups very specific special needs groups that not everybody like the average mom necessarily or average parent necessarily qualified for and I feel like pico pals feels that niche that it's it's really just parenthood is universal um and I know when we develop the program we we created financial aid supports for special populations who maybe couldn't afford um to participate um and and I know in every group we always have at least like one or two that we just compensate and just say welcome in because connection is fundamental you kept mentioning that um and there's research on that too like the whole mazl's hierarchy of needs it's food shelter water but the very next one is actually loving connection and if you don't have that you kind of go a little bit bananas like and and we don't know like you you feel it and you feel often you think maybe i'm just sleep deprived which is that too exactly by that but that actually is a a total fundamental basic human yeah it really is so talk to me about if someone wanted to lead a group what is the process what kinds of training do you do for them oh so um we invite them let's see we try to we aim for like once a month uh or every other month we hold a group leader training um a couple of hours at at healthy mothers healthy babies um oh gosh and qualifications it's nice if you if you participate in a pico pals group but it's okay if you did not it's really anyone who is a parent or who has experience as a as a parent because as you know it's it's really helpful when you when you when you know people's experience going into it um let's see so we meet for a couple hours and then we talk about our program the mechanics of it but more importantly we talk about the feel and the philosophy of it i know at least you're talking about the binder we do have this magical binder that's comprehensive but i don't know if you remembered when we went through our group leader training i didn't spend a ton of time in the binder i tried to i tried to facilitate spaces where people could connect and talk with each other and then uh go back into their own personal experience uh and practice listening a lot of empathy and i tried to encourage our group leaders to trust their own intuition just like how we do with our moms and to really be comfortable with who you are as a person and to acknowledge that you are growing and learning as well just like your parents um and i think it's i i i learned something new every time that i'm a group leader and it is so humbling yeah i would encourage it for anyone if you love babies if you uh if you believe in relationships and connection and community and um serving others or just contributing feels i don't know it's also like a research proof and happiness um practice but just giving um i would say please please sign up to be a group leader that's fantastic fantastic well we're just about out of time so i wanted to encourage anyone watching if they're interested in signing up for pico pals to visit healthy mothers healthy babies at hmhb-hoy.org or search online for pico pals to join a group um alise and lianna thank you so much for joining me today thanks for everyone who's tuned in today and i'll see you next time on family affairs and think tuck away