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Parents Anonymous, Inc. today announced the launch of Breaking the Stigma with Dr. Lisa, a new podcast featuring honest conversations about the strengths and challenges parents and young people face every day. Hosted by Parents Anonymous President and CEO Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin, the podcast is founded on one core belief: Asking for Help is a Sign of Strength®.

Breaking the Stigma with Dr. Lisa premieres Saturday, Oct. 10, on World Mental Health Day. Each episode will feature parents, young people and advocates sharing firsthand experiences with mental health, family pressures and the decision to reach out for support.

“Too many parents, children and youth feel like they have to hide what they are going through or wait until things get worse before reaching out,” Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin said. “This podcast is about making those conversations more honest, more visible and more human. If even one person hears these stories and realizes they are not alone, that matters.”

The first episode, “When Your Child Is Struggling: Finding Strength in Asking for Help,” features Aurora, a Latina mother of two sharing her family’s experience navigating her daughter’s anxiety and panic attacks.

Upcoming episodes will explore parenting a child with special needs while navigating family loss; bullying, social media and youth mental health; the pressures of caring for aging parents and an adult child at the same time; substance use and recovery; and the power of parent leadership.

While many parenting and mental health podcasts focus primarily on expert interviews, commentary or advice, Breaking the Stigma with Dr. Lisa takes a story-led approach. Parents, young people and advocates speak directly about what they experienced, how those challenges affected their daily lives, why asking for help felt difficult and what changed when someone listened without judgment. The series spans a range of family experiences, giving parents, children and youth more opportunities to hear stories that reflect their own lives. The conversations also reinforce that needing support does not make someone weak and that reaching out is a courageous first step.

Following the Oct. 10 premiere, additional episodes will be released monthly. Listeners can follow Breaking the Stigma with Dr. Lisa on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major podcast platforms.

Parents, children and youth seeking emotional support can call or text the National Parent & Youth Helpline™ at 855-427-2736 or start a live chat at NationalParentYouthHelpline.org. Support is available at no cost, 24 hours a day, seven days a week with no blame and shame.

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By Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin, ACSW, ACHT, CEO and President of Parents Anonymous

Becoming a father changes many things, but it does not make someone immune to stress, grief, loneliness or periods when life feels difficult to manage. When you are responsible for caring for your family and responding to their needs, it can also become easy to put your own needs aside or simply stop checking in with how you are doing.

That is especially important to consider during Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the suicide rate among males in the United States was nearly four times higher than the rate among females in 2024, at 22.2 deaths per 100,000 males compared with 5.6 per 100,000 females.

Numbers this stark are a reminder that our own mental health cannot always be the thing we get to later. Asking for help can matter long before someone reaches a crisis.

For fathers, seeking support when they need it does not diminish who they are as a parent or the care they provide to their family. It means recognizing that their well-being deserves care, too.

Read the full article

Supporters of the California Parent and Youth Helpline are pleading with lawmakers to restore its funding after Gov. Gavin Newsom left it out of his May budget proposal, released May 14.

Last year, lawmakers initially approved the funding but cut it at the last minute. Parents Anonymous, which runs the helpline, is asking the legislature to commit $5 million a year for the next three years.

Lisa Pion-Berlin, president and CEO of Parents Anonymous, which runs the helpline, said the loss of state funding means fewer counselors manning the phones and longer wait times.

“We have a 40% abandonment rate,” Pion-Berlin pointed out. “That means that 40% of the Californians who try to call us, text us, or live chat, they abandon the call or the text because they’re holding too long because we don’t have the capacity to respond to them.”

People can still call the National Parent Youth Helpline at 855-427-2736, which gets $2 million a year in federal funds and can go to the hotline’s website. Trained counselors guide families as they confront a wide range of crises, including bullying, domestic violence and thoughts of suicide. Since 2020, the helpline has supported almost 130,000 callers and made close to 90,000 referrals.

Pion-Berlin argued the state should consider good mental health and emotional support to be a basic need.

“This program works,” Pion-Berlin asserted. “It’s the only helpline that’s proven that from the beginning to the end of the call, 85% of the callers feel more positive, more hopeful and have a solution-focused attitude.”

The program no longer offers online support groups but funds from the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health support in-person therapy. The legislature has until June 15 to approve a balanced budget.

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U.S. Rep. Norma Torres introduced the National Parent & Youth Helpline Act on Friday which establishes support and prevention, ensuring that parents, caregivers, children and youth have access to timely, trusted assistance to navigate challenges.

Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin joined CBS Los Angeles this morning to talk about the bill. View the segment below.

If you are interested in being an Endorser of the bill, contact Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin.

Families are not just managing screen time anymore. We are living in a digital-first world where social media never sleeps, AI is becoming part of school and work, and a phone can quietly replace real connection at home. Many parents tell me they feel like they are competing with devices for their child’s attention, while also feeling pulled by their own notifications, work messages and endless to-do lists.

We’re not aiming to “win” our family in 2026 against technology. We’re aiming to establish healthy home culture where relationships come first and tech knows its place. We have collectively lost our way, where the priority is human connection.

Here are realistic ways to come together as a family while balancing the digital push and pull of everyday life.

Start with phone-free micro-moments

Don’t try to fix everything at once. Most families find this turns into month one “going cold turkey” that fizzles out by week two. Focus on daily phone-free micro-moments, such as:

• The first 10 minutes after your child gets home from school. Talk about something important that happened—funny or serious.
• No phones for everyone at dinner.
• The last 10 minutes before bedtime.
• During the car ride to extra-curricular activities.

Read the full article on Psychreg

It was fitting that Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, with its trauma center that has seen so many victims of gun violence over the years, served as the starting point for the October 9 Pomona Peace Walk.

The march, hosted by House of Ruth, the City of Pomona, Project Hope California, and others, drew dozens for the 1.1-mile route from the hospital to House of Ruth’s outreach office at 599 N. Main St., Pomona.

Among them was Sonja Gonzales from Parents Anonymous, who carried a poster with photos of Jeannette Pacheco, a victim of gun violence.

“Her life was taken by her partner,” Gonzales said. “He shot and killed her in the streets of Pomona on Mission, by the car wash.” The date on Gonzales’s poster was May 23, 2024. “She was my sober living sister. I was in recovery with her. And unfortunately, she went back to a disease, and she lost her life.”

Gonzales said she keeps Pacheco’s memory alive with the work she does at Parents Anonymous, a Claremont nonprofit that offers family strengthening programs.

“I get to help people every day that are in the same shoes that her and I were in,” Gonzales said. “I just get to strive and push forward, to know that her life isn’t in vain. She didn’t die in vain because I get to keep her memory alive with every person that I help not end up like her.”

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Parents Anonymous, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting parents, children and youth, recently celebrated the grand opening of its new San Fernando Valley Well-Being Center in Van Nuys. The ribbon-cutting event welcomed community members, representatives of local dignitaries and parent advocates for an evening of food, family-friendly activities and connection.

The new Center expands no-cost, evidence-based mental health services across Los Angeles County. Families will have access to weekly Parents Anonymous Adult, Children & Youth Groups that are trauma-informed and built on personal strengths, along with individual and family therapy sessions, tailored referrals and resource navigation, and 24/7 crisis intervention through the National Parent & Youth Helpline.

After the ceremony, guests had the opportunity to tour the new facility, meet staff and learn more about how the Center will serve as a hub for connection, healing and empowerment – backed by more than 56 years of Parents Anonymous expertise.

“Families in the San Fernando Valley deserve access to meaningful support close to home,” said Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin, president & CEO of Parents Anonymous. “This new Center builds on more than five decades of evidence-based work and ensures that parents and youth in this community can find connection, compassion and healing when they need it most.”

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Policy decisions on the state and federal levels are creating chaos for the California-based National Parent and Youth Helpline, a service that connects callers in emotional distress to trained counselors. California cut $3 million for the helpline out of the state budget this past June, after supporting the program since its inception in 2020.

Lisa Pion-Berlin, president and CEO of Parents Anonymous, the nonprofit organization that runs the helpline, said the cuts came at a particularly bad time, because calls to the helpline doubled between August and September.

“So, we know the demand is increasing, but our capacity is not increasing, which means one thing – our abandonment rate goes up,” she said. “We can’t answer fast enough, we can’t respond fast enough because we don’t have the staff to do that. People who leave us messages, we call them back. We have people who are in crisis who, we call them back, several times.”

Pion-Berlin added that cuts to SNAP and Medicaid in the Republican tax-cut-and-spending bill passed this summer will hurt struggling families. She adds she worries that the administration will use the government shutdown as an excuse to cut social service programs like the helpline, which receives $2 million a year in federal funds.

In July, the Trump administration pulled the plug on the specialized counseling for LGBTQ people that used to be available on the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Pion-Berlin added that, along with other federal policy changes, is causing emotional turmoil.

Read more on PNS

On this edition of Your Call, we continue our discussions about California’s budget cuts, which could potentially eliminate funding for the Parents Anonymous’ California Parent & Youth Helpline.

In May 2020, Parents Anonymous, an organization that supports parents and their families, launched the hotline in partnership with state leadership as part of an initiative to support parents, children, and youth impacted by COVID. The helpline now operates in over 80 percent of California counties and has helped hundreds of thousands across the state for the last five years.

According to Parents Anonymous, the state legislature proposed $3 million for the organization in this year’s budget proposal, but as of Tuesday, the organization was made aware that Governor Gavin Newsom “redlined” their total budget.

“This comes as a shock as last month the Helpline had a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Technology in Human Services, which showed that 85% of callers experienced improved mood and reduced stress within a single call, proving its effectiveness.”

Listen at KALW Public Media

Phone lines that provide mental health support to tens of thousands of Californians say they are on the verge of shutting down or dramatically scaling back as a result of cuts in the state’s new budget. 

Representatives from the support lines, which are distinct from hotlines that serve people in crisis, say they help thousands of Californians with mental health needs each month.

And with more people than ever calling or texting for help, they say, the so-called warm lines are falling victim to both the budget shortfall and, in some cases, the roll out of Proposition 1, a 2024 ballot measure that redirected some tax revenue from mental health services toward housing.

“We save lives every day,” said Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin, chief executive of Parents Anonymous, whose California Parents & Youth Helpline serves about 24,000 people a year. “Without that safety net there, where are people going to go?”

Pion-Berlin said the organization had requested $3 million a year from the state; the budget Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last week didn’t provide any of it. Layoffs have already begun.

Read the full article on CalMatters