The founder
From her journey, the idea was born!
Sylvie
Behind Oui Are Family®, there is Sylvie
A mother, a steady presence, and a persistent wish that parents could count on one another and find the support she herself had long been searching for. So she decided to act, and today she is building the platform she once needed: Oui Are Family®.
The idea grew through her experience as a mother, her involvement with associations, and thousands of encounters. Behind very different life stories, she kept finding the same feeling of loneliness, paired with the need to be listened to, understood and supported in everyday parenting.
A commitment to parents since 1999
Sylvie volunteered alongside parents facing separation and distance from their children. She helped develop listening and welcoming spaces, working alongside volunteers, family law professionals and local partners.
Within five years, the network grew to ten welcome centres across western France. The community grew from five members to more than 300, and Sylvie met over 3,000 people. Working with fathers, mothers and grandparents, she learned to recognise each person's struggles, their strengths and their capacity to support one another.
Bringing solidarity to life, day after day
Her commitment continued through gatherings between parents and community initiatives. She notably created a mobile, solidarity-based charity clothing shop where everything was sold for one euro.
These experiences showed her how much a small act of help, a meeting or an exchange can matter. They reinforced a conviction that would guide the rest of her journey: that every parent can both receive support and, in turn, offer it.
Several milestones of her commitment were covered in the media, notably on France 3 Bretagne in 2001, on the TV show « Les Maternelles » in 2008, and in a regional newspaper in 2011 for her fieldwork alongside parents. In 2003, her commitment also led her to meet Christian Jacob, then Minister Delegate for the Family.
First, looking for tools for her own children
Sylvie also knew the fatigue that builds up, the words that no longer get through, and the times when everyday life feels like survival mode. In 2010, she began looking for tools to communicate better with her children and to grow her own parenting potential.
This search led her to parental coaching and then to cognitive and behavioural techniques. Having become a parental coach in 2011, she wanted to share with other parents the resources she had first sought out for herself.
Her attention to the bonds between generations was also shaped by her own personal history, notably caring for her grandmother day to day until the end of her life, then later for her grandfather, and through a lasting friendship with the founder of an association dedicated to grandparents.
From experience to the creation of Oui Are Family®
The idea of a place bringing parents together stayed with her from the earliest episodes of « Les Maternelles », which she watched while expecting her second child. Her experience in the field gradually shaped what she wanted to build.
A single place to find people to exchange useful resources and solutions suited to everyday life.
Today, this ambition is taking shape with Oui Are Family®, a collaborative and interactive platform currently under development, designed for parents, parents-to-be and grandparents, as well as people on an IVF, fertility treatment or adoption journey.
Themed communities, local meetups, a national directory and mutual support among parents will make it possible to build connections online and in person. Everyone will be able to share what they are going through, pass on what has helped them and highlight the resources they have discovered.
The community is also being built to welcome the joys, the tips and the unexpected experiences that make parenting life so rich.
Sylvie laid the first stones. The rest of the story will be written with those who join her.
If this story resonates with yours, join the Oui Are Family® adventure. Your experience, your ideas and your presence can help build a community where everyone touched by the life or the wish of being a parent can find their place.
Oui Are Family® aims to bring parents together around a shared space of support, sharing and passing on knowledge, to accompany every family in everyday life.
Together, let's build it!
Oui Are Family®… parents, finally together.