Sunbeam Building Brighter Futures For Oklahoma Kids, Families

One year ago, News 9 launched its partnership with Sunbeam Family Services with the mission to Build Brighter Futures for the youngest Oklahomans and their families.

We are giving you an inside look at how Sunbeam is fulfilling that need and how you can help us keep it going.

Parent and teacher Mike Fadum said he could see definite differences in his students after the COVID-19 lockdown.

"I would say there was a lot of regression," Fadum said.

Shayla Winrow M.Ed., LPC, CEIM said the impact of the pandemic is still being felt.

"Even though the actual pandemic has been declared over, we're going to still see those signs and signals that it existed, that we all went through it," Winrow said.

Fadum said he and his wife, Katy Lundberg, are seeing the long-term effects of the pandemic in the nine children they've fostered since 2019, especially the one teenager they cared for.

"I think that their parents struggled with how to manage a 'typical angsty' teenagere at home 24/7, and then that just created a whole other barrier of -- now every single friend is online, and we don't know how to make relationships in person," Lundberg said.

Sunbeam's Winrow explains that this is one of the things kids of all ages are struggling with the most right now.

"Our children that are having some separation anxiety because they've been around their safe people for so long, and now they're being separated," Winrow said.

This is why Sunbeam starts early.

Sunbeam offers mental health services for parents before the child is even born and follows through with support for the child and their entire family, including grandparents who are raising their grandkids.

Sunbeam's help is available to all families. We have added details on who qualifies for Sunbeam's mental health and early education services on our special Sunbeam web page.