During her 20 years as a labour and delivery/postpartum nurse, doula, and childbirth educator, Joanne Ilaqua was constantly reminded of the fear and insecurity new moms experienced. It happened as they were leaving the hospital with their newborns and Joanne saw it often during follow-up visits.

She knew that these moms usually felt better after talking through their challenges, and she wanted to find a way to help — so, she started visioning an online community that would eventually become the “Mamasoup” app.

When she first retired from nursing, Joanne considered building a website that would act as a resource for moms but that idea just wasn’t practical. Moms were more likely to look to social media for support on a phone than they were to sit in front of a computer. So, Joanne started thinking about building an app.

But then, while the idea was still in its infancy, Joanne’s life was interrupted by some heavy losses. This gave her the inspiration and the means to take the next step.

“My father-in-law died shortly after my mother-in-law,” Joanne explains. “And there is something about death that makes things more urgent. I felt a push to do this now.”

So, with a small inheritance from her father-in-law, she decided to launch Mamasoup, a free mobile app that lets moms connect to a community of peer support and caring wherever and whenever they need it.

“I’ve been at both ends of the spectrum as a mom,” Joanne says. “I’ve been a poor single mom and I’ve been a married mom with resources. I believe that all moms deserve support no matter what their financial status is and I believe the best support comes from other moms.”

And that’s how the free app works. Moms can download it from the Apple App Store or Google Play, they enter in their location and then they are connected in an anonymous way with other moms. They can post questions, share advice, watch threads unfold or share local events.

Through the app, moms can collaborate, they can ask for support, and they can empathize with the experiences of their peers.

It’s about sharing success and lightening the load when it all feels like things are too heavy to manage alone — which is exactly what Joanne always wanted to do for moms who were struggling.

The shared experience and wisdom of moms creates the perfect ingredient list for surviving the tough parts of coping with kids. Joanne is enjoying the collaboration and the growth of this virtual “soup” that she dreamed up.

“It is just the coolest watching people connect,” Joanne says. “They are talking about parenting, miscarriage, infertility, even Netflix and it’s boosting their confidence to know they have community and that they’re not alone.”

The app lets users send private messages and is supporting the development of real-life relationships, online or in person, for moms who might never have met otherwise.

“It’s so important for moms to hear that they’re not alone,” Joanne says.

She also notes that, for moms who are experiencing postpartum depression, peer support is a crucial part of recovery.

But the app is not just for new moms. Moms of kids of all ages and stages are welcome. There’s room to discuss how to manage newborns as well as opportunities to share the challenge of parenting teens.

With the free app launched, Joanne is hoping that more and more moms will connect to get the most support possible as they move through the wild ride of motherhood.

She’s also feeling great about achieving her goal of making motherhood more manageable for moms wherever and whenever they need some support, help or some cheerleading.

For more information about Mamasoup, visit mamasoup.ca. You can also follow Mamasoup on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Vanessa Dinesen doesn’t mind her own business, figuratively speaking.

In fact, the owner of Dinesen Financial makes it her business to help business owners with the mundane tasks that compete for their attention on any given day, so their time is better spent focusing on the big picture, like strategy and growth.

For 10 years, the Peterborough-based financial services company has been assisting small-to mid-sized companies with keeping track of their fundamental financials, with everything from bookkeeping to personal tax returns to financial statements.

“Whether you have a year’s worth of records to sort through and calculate into financial statements, need help jump-starting your business, creating a budget, or you need a trustworthy bookkeeper to take over, I can be of service in all those areas,” says Vanessa.

Some businesses lack financial clarity and it’s important that the owners understand the details of managing their money wisely, she adds.

“I translate financial details into a language that is clear to my clients, no matter what stage of growth they are working on, so they can make informed business decisions.”

To make life even more manageable for business owners, Dinesen Financial recently expanded its services to include virtual assistant duties, working remotely to help clients with administrative tasks and technical and creative assistance.

For businesses, Vanessa can handle their online presence and office communications, conduct research, maintain customer relations, and keep them organized.

“Obviously bookkeeping and income tax services are a priority and take precedence over everything else, but I can help populate databases and manage events and social media business accounts as well.”

Vanessa considers her services a game changer for almost any business.

“If you’re spending more time supporting your business instead of growing it, you’re not making the best use of your efforts,” she adds.

With a head for numbers and a flair for enterprise, Vanessa, who was born and raised in Peterborough, says the road paved to entrepreneurism was a given for her.

The impetus to dabble in sales started she was 16-years-old, selling Avon products door-to-door in Peterborough, with her mom signing orders for her at the time because she wasn’t of legal age to sell. Door-to-door sales, she says, gave her ample business training, allowing her to both hone her powers of persuasion and, at times, overcome rejection.

Naturally after high school, she pursued an advanced diploma in Business Administration – Accounting at Fleming College, followed by an Honours Degree in Business Administration at Trent University. Vanessa says her studies allowed her “to be methodological, very organized and reliable.”

The journey that followed was employment in a corporate role that demanded much of her time while trying to start a new family.

As her brood grew over the years, the numbers-savvy mom realized that she was struggling to find a work-life balance and that she needed to reevaluate how she spent her time.

“Despite the opportunities, I realized the job simply wasn’t worth the endless demands,” says Vanessa. “I was missing out on spending quality time with my kids.”

So, she took a leap of faith and started her own business: Dinesen Financial. Vanessa’s husband, Wayne, also joined her working on the technical side of things, including website development and updates, and IT infrastructure.

A self-professed “student for life,” Vanessa continues to learn by keeping up-to-date on the latest trends and business practices in her industry through webinars with the Government of Canada and the Institute of Professional Bookkeepers Canada.

For many, raising a young family and running a business seems like a daunting task; however, Vanessa says, she and Wayne wouldn’t have it any other way.

Now with six kids in total, ranging from eight-months-old to 15-years-old, Vanessa admits that it can be tricky to make sure that both work and family life run smoothly, but says that she does her best to practice what she preaches.

“I’m learning how to live in the present. Regardless, at the end of the day, family is our top priority.”

Vanessa is also a huge supporter of local women in business.

“It’s important that we champion the ideas and amplify the voices of women in our community and support them in their business ventures,” Vanessa adds.

After attending a Mompreneurs conference in Toronto 2013, Vanessa realized there wasn’t anything like it in her hometown. Soon after, she started a Mompreneurs chapter in Peterborough, with the goal to support, educate and empower moms throughout their journey in entrepreneurship. She offered monthly educational workshops and an opportunity for Mompreneur members to grow their network and connect with other women in business.

In 2016, she launched the Women Excelling in Business group with fellow Women’s Business Network of Peterborough (WBN) members, Diane Wolf and Christine Teixeira. The women offered members a monthly podcast, webinars and articles based on business experts, along with monthly workshops and networking meetings. After a year, the group decided to discontinue as the trio’s own businesses were growing and needed their full attention.

In her spare time, Vanessa volunteers at her children’s school as treasurer for the parent council, and donates her time as local coordinator for the Peterborough Shoebox Project which collects and distributes gifts in the form of Shoeboxes to women in local shelters and outreach centres.

And although that adds to her plate, as she describes it, this helps her make meaningful contributions and connections in her community.

Ironically, for Vanessa, starting her own business means that she is now busier than ever.

Even though many Canadians have wrapped up filing for the fiscal year 2017 tax season, she says it’s not too early to start thinking about next year with tax preparation and filing.

“Tax season can be stressful, but I like to pride myself in that I can take that burden from my clients,” says Vanessa. “I want to help them make money and give them security. Ultimately their success equals my success.”

For more information about Dinesen Financial, call 705-768-5970, email info@dinesenfinancial.com, or visit dinesenfinancial.com. You can also find Dinesen Financial on Facebook and Twitter.

Hearing loss is isolating and it can be terrifying but, in both mild and extreme cases, when Brenda Cowan uses her 30-plus years of experience to restore hearing to her clients at The Ear Depot, it is life changing.

“When people can hear again and when they can have a conversation again, it is so rewarding because you know that their life has been turned around,” Brenda says.

Sometimes there are tears and sometimes hugs and. according to Brenda, helping someone get to hear familiar sounds and voices again will never get old.

“It feels good when you know that someone is going to go back to enjoying life again,” she explains. “That’s what we do here.”

At The Ear Depot, the whole team believes that everyone deserves to hear clearly, and this simple philosophy is what they offer to their clients in Peterborough, Bancroft and Barry’s Bay.

It’s not about selling hearing aids — it’s about helping someone enjoy life again, but this can take time and whole lot of effort which is why a first appointment at The Ear Depot can take 90 minutes, involving lots of questions about the hearing loss, and also, about a client’s lifestyle.

“We’re cultivating relationships, and we’re also digging for clues,” Brenda says.

Brenda puts a lot of emphasis on the culture that she and her team have built. Her team knows that they have only a few seconds to make someone feel relaxed and comfortable when they walk through the door. This ease and inevitably, this trust, is important to develop, especially when so many hearing aid providers are known for quick sales and expensive products.

Once her clients are relaxed and their consultations are done, she and her team get to work on testing hearing, checking for ear wax and figuring out what the best steps will be to get clients re-connected to their community through better hearing.

“Conversation made easy is our number one objective,” she explains.

Brenda is proud of her many years in the business and she’s proud that she trained before computers did most of the diagnostic work. Now Brenda makes sure that her team are up to speed with the latest technology, but that their skills are balanced with her old-school approach.

“These days it’s normal for a computer to tell us what to do but my staff are great at telling the computer what to do,” Brenda says. “That’s my training and all the troubleshooting is the science.”

If after extensive testing hearing aids are the way to make conversation easy, Brenda gets to work on product recommendations and then there’s the intricate process of tuning and testing the equipment.

“We do that in a room full of real life sound,” Brenda says.

And this just makes so much more sense than testing and training in a quiet environment because Brenda’s clients want to hear sounds again — not silence.

Family members are also invited into the sound room and no matter how long it takes, with tuning, testing and client coaching — Brenda does not stop until her clients are satisfied.

Even her clients with incurable tinnitus have life-changing experiences when they are fitted with new, finely tuned devices.

“We help people who are suffering, and they are amazed when they find out that there are products that can control the tinnitus and that there is masking (of the symptoms) without any amplification,” she explains. “This makes a huge difference when people have given up or are depressed and isolated because of their symptoms.”

Brenda wishes people would come to see her as soon as they notice even a small change in their ability to hear because when hearing loss occurs, conversation stops and that’s not something Brenda wants anyone to ever experience as long as she is able to share her skills, experience and passion for restoring hearing to clients across the region.

The Ear Depot is located at 236 Parkhill Road East in Peterborough (705-749-0707), 229 Hasting Street North in Bancroft (613-332-3754), and 12 Dunn Street in Barry’s Bay (613-756-9550). For more information, visit www.theeardepot.com or email info@theeardepot.com. You can also email Brenda Cowan at brenda@theeardepot.com and connect with The Ear Depot on Facebook and on Twitter.

Perhaps you have heard the saying in business, “Pick one thing and be really good at it.” Diane Wolf’s experience shows that an alternate path exists for entrepreneurs.

Diane, a former business professor at Trent University and the owner of Diane Wolf Consulting, is set to launch her second business in Peterborough: a psychotherapy practice, which she plans to operate concurrently with her business consulting practice.

As a business mentor, Diane can teach you the practical steps for launching a business. She can recommend resources for website development, teach marketing skills and how to network, but perhaps most importantly, she will empower you to recognize and capitalize on your strengths.

“With my business consultation practice, I offer the practical skills you need to take your business or project idea to the next level,” Diane says.

“But I think people need more than just the practical. My goal is to also encourage, educate, and empower my clients. We are all really good at seeing what we don’t do well but many of us need help to recognize our strengths. I’m good at finding out what people are good at.”

And she took her own advice. Diane’s transition back to psychology began with her recognizing her own strengths. Diane has always been interested in psychology, even completing an Honours Bachelor of Science in Psychology before completing her Master of Business Administration.

Whether travelling as an international speaker, working as a translator, teaching business classes, leading professional development workshops, or offering private consultation services, Diane’s passion for psychology has always informed her work.

Early in her career, Diane left her hometown of Peterborough for Europe to work as a translator, where she met her husband of 40 years.

After returning to Peterborough, Diane worked for the school board, teaching German language classes and gaining experience with curriculum development.

She then travelled as an international speaker to the United Kingdom, the North Eastern United States, and all across Canada, teaching presentation skills and leadership skills for women.

Fittingly, when she decided to end her career as an international speaker, a position opened up at Trent University in the business department.

At Trent, Diane taught a variety of courses, including communications, business writing, marketing and management skills, interviewing skills, networking, and even some psychology.

This experience was invaluable to Diane. It was while teaching that she realized her passion for psychology was still strong, and she began to understand how her knowledge of psychology influenced what she was teaching and how she taught it.

“There were moments in my teaching career when students cried in my office and I offered advice and support,” recalls Diane. “That was me being a counsellor.”

These moments became an epiphany for Diane. From teaching she realized her own unique ability to blend mentorship and counselling.

“Those moments in my teaching career helped me realize where my strengths were and what I wanted to do,” she says.

Clients have commented on Diane’s ability to not only offer accurate advice on how to start or develop a business, but to also work with them on the underlying issues that may jeopardize their success.

“I’ve had clients say to me, ‘You’re more like my counsellor'” she says, “A big part of business coaching is telling people they can do something.”

All of this experience led Diane back to her first love: psychology. In April of 2019, Diane will graduate with a Master’s Degree in Clinical Counselling and begin developing her psychotherapy practice.

As a counsellor, Diane hopes to help clients work through feelings of grief, loss, depression, and anxiety, and she’ll also offer couples therapy. Diane’s unique and varied experience makes her capable of helping her clients overcome a wide range of obstacles.

Despite this new endeavor, Diane will still be offering business coaching, which she feels has only been enhanced by her second entry into entrepreneurship.

In either capacity, Diane describes herself as a cheerleader for her clients.

“I’ve had a number of clients call me that,” she says, noting she takes great pride in watching her students become better than her at something. “I stand behind my clients and I lift them up.”

Diane Wolf Consulting is located in Peterborough. For more information, contact Diane at 705-772-5654 or diane@dianewolf.com or visit dianewolfconsulting.com. You can also find Diane Wolf Consulting on Facebook.

Special to kawarthaNOW.com

Sue Simmons is on a mission to give Autism Moms back their power!

“Moms of ASD children have been given the unspoken message that they’re unqualified to help their children; that they belong in the back seat of the bus. I’m out to change this,” says Sue.

Her journey began the day her five-year-old son was diagnosed with autism. For two years she and her husband (who would later be loosely diagnosed with Asperger’s) searched for answers. She sought support and involved her son in programs, but nothing helped.

“I felt so incompetent as a parent,” she says. “I was at my wits’ end, consumed with guilt and anxiety. It’s particularly hard for Moms, because they feel so powerless and desperately want to have a loving connection without having to walk on eggshells to prevent meltdowns. They want their child to have quality of life and sacrifice themselves in the process.”

After doing her research and discovering that autism didn’t have to be a life sentence — thanks to the fact that the brain can be shaped through experience — she turned for help to a Relationship Development Intervention (RDIÒ) consultant. This leading-edge program is based on neurodevelopment and child development and promises to give parents a second chance to build a loving, reciprocal relationship with their child with ASD. Even further, it gives parents and their ASD children the opportunity to enjoy real quality of life.

“I was able to build the connection with my son that I had only dreamed of,” Sue says. “It changed my life, not to mention my son’s.”

She said ‘Goodbye’ to her career in sales and marketing, and went to Houston, Texas to train with the psychologists who developed the evidence-based program. Since 2006, she’s been a Certified RDI Consultant, and guides her clients to reclaim their power, competence and the joy of connection through her business, Equinox Family Consulting Ltd.

In 2012, Simmons added additional skills to her toolkit. She earned her Certified Professional Coach credential with the International Coach Academy, to get to the core of the personal pain experienced by Moms of children with ASD. Still, something was missing.

Simmons learned about the fastest-growing mind-body methodology in the world, which reduces stress and anxiety, and can shift negative thinking patterns, so people aren’t at the mercy of their circumstances. She knew all about stress. By that point in her life she not only had a son with autism but was faced with other serious challenges related to physical and mental health in her immediate and extended family.

The technique she discovered is in a leading-edge field “energy psychology” which is called Emotional Freedom Techniques, or EFT — also known as “tapping.” This gentle technique calms the “fight or flight” center of the brain, changing neural connections and reducing or eliminating its neural charge.

“Becoming Certified as an EFT Practitioner was life-altering for me,” she says. “It allowed me to manage my emotions and has freed me from being a slave to my thoughts and worries.”

The fact that tapping had yet to be considered mainstream by some western psychologists when Simmons embraced it is not lost on her, but her own personal experience reinforced its value, and now, the scientific world has uncovered clear evidence of its effectiveness and, of course, the mind-body connection.

“Both my autism work (RDI) and tapping were considered ‘woo woo’ until recently because they’re both focused on building new neural connections; now the concept of neuroplasticity is widely accepted and backed by mountains of research,” Sue says.

In 2017, Simmons set out to reach more people and created her signature program, Lemons to Lemonade Better Behaviour Bootcamp, an online group coaching program for ASD Moms (Moms of children with ASD).

“Prior to creating this program, I did extensive research. I discovered that regardless of whether a child had been in behaviour therapy or not, most Moms didn’t know where to begin to manage their child’s difficult behavior. I realized that if I could teach them these skills, this would open the door for them to build a more positive and loving connection with their child.

“The program gives Moms the tools to manage difficult behaviour, and to feel competent as parents. It’s an eight-week online program that Moms can do from the comfort of their own home. It’s wonderful because as they learn and grow they can connect with other Moms who share the same challenges. It’s so exciting to see them experience ‘aha’ moments and realizing that they have the power to make change in their own families!”

Her program helps Moms break through the shame and guilt they experience because they don’t know where to start. Throughout the eight weeks they learn critical skills to reduce the duration and frequency of meltdowns and shift negative patterns that have developed between child and parent. They learn to communicate in a way that reduces nagging and power struggles. Self-care is also a key component.

“In order to help our children, we need to learn to look after ourselves in a manageable way,” Sue explains. “Self-care isn’t a nice to do — it’s a ‘need to do’.”

“We can get back in the driver’s seat, and feel competent,” she adds.

This is exactly what she’s done, and with a laugh, she says, “Trust me, I’ve had my share of difficulty.”

“Once I saw how I could give Moms the skills to take back their power; to manage difficult behavior, feel competent as a parent and build a more loving connection with their child, it was a calling. How could I do anything else? It’s a great honor to do this work.”

Equinox Family Consulting Ltd. is located in Peterborough. For more information, call 705-875-4605, email simmons@bell.net or visit www.equinoxfamilyconsulting.com. You can also follow Equinox Family Consulting Ltd. on Facebook.

For more information about the Lemons to Lemonade Better Behaviour Bootcamp, visit www.lemonstolemonade.mom. Sue also also runs the Facebook group Lemons to Lemonade – ASD Mom’s Group, an online community for moms of ASD children to gain support and knowledge about what they can do to bring balance, calm, and control back to their household.