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A Unique Support Group Helps Parents of Children in Foster Care
Source: Imprint News
Parents caught up in the child welfare system have to tell their stories to social worker investigators, lawyers and judges as they fight to keep their families together.
But what happens when they share their stories with each other?
A nationwide network serving parents who battle mental health challenges, substance abuse disorders and domestic violence shows regular participation in a support group may make all the difference.
The groups are run by the national nonprofit Parents Anonymous and provide participants with an outlet and coping strategies. In line with growing attention nationwide on preventing maltreatment rather than dealing with its aftermath, they are open to parents and caregivers with children in foster care — and those at risk of future involvement with the child welfare system.
“The child’s well-being is intricately linked to the parents’ well-being, and those parents need support to dig down deep to deal with their own history,” said Lisa Pion-Berlin, president of Parents Anonymous. “We talk about being a trauma- informed field, but many of these systems traumatize people, and don’t help them and don’t believe in asking the question: How can I help you parents?”
Launched in 1969, Parents Anonymous is one of just five programs designated by a federal review panel as an “evidence-based” path to improving child safety. It is also the only reviewed program in the federal clearinghouse for child maltreatment prevention programs shown to do so while simultaneously improving parenting skills and caregivers’ mental health and substance abuse.The California-based organization runs hundreds of free, confidential two-hour weekly sessions with financial backing from local governments in California, Oregon, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and the Northern Marianas Islands, a U.S. territory near the Phillipines.
More than 4.5 million parents, caregivers and their children nationwide have participated, numbers that have grown when the programs went virtual in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A safe space for caregivers
Support groups led by Parents Anonymous were pivotal for Antonia Rios of Southern California. By the time she found out she was pregnant with her sixth child, she’d attended therapy, court-ordered parenting classes, Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Her first five children had been taken into foster care, and this time she was determined to try, once more, to fight for her family.
Suffering from addiction, mental health struggles and the crippling effects of traumatic events over her lifetime, Rios, 45, learned of Parents Anonymous in 2007 from a rehab counselor.
Her 15 subsequent years of attendance in the support groups, she said, have been transformative. The group conversations are free of judgment, and with the highest stakes on the line — their children — participants commit to change and growth.
“I got not only the safe space, but the support to address my underlying fears and concerns and issues and trauma,” Rios said. “I got all of this from Parents Anonymous that I had never gotten from anywhere else.”
Three years later, Rios managed to bring her children home from foster care, and has since taken in a disabled niece to care for as well. Rios also now serves as a senior parent partner providing support and mentorship to fellow group members navigating child welfare cases, and chair of the national and California Parent Leadership Teams.
Embedded in landmark child abuse prevention
The origins of Parents Anonymous date back to 1969, when a struggling California mother identified as Jolly K. was attempting to reunify with her child who’d been in foster care. Desperate for resources to help her succeed in keeping her family intact, she organized a parent support and advocacy group with the help of her social worker. Within a few years, the group caught the attention of then-U.S. Sen. Walter Mondale, according to an account published in the journal Pediatrics. At the time, the now-deceased Mondale was helping craft the nation’s landmark 1974 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA).
At Mondale’s invitation, Jolly K. testified before Congress, helping to shape the policy and get the law passed. The senator-turned vice president Mondale would later say that Jolly K.’s testimony taught him “what child abuse was about.”
CAPTA mandated federal funding for Parents Anonymous, the only program mentioned by name in the final version of the law, as noted in a 2014 report by the federal Administration for Children and Families.
As Parents Anonymous has grown over the decades, its support group members have pursued local, state and federal advocacy and policy work. Parent participants also help facilitate research projects, including a recent study conducted by the nonprofit research and consulting foundation Casey Family Programs.
The group is currently conducting a randomized controlled study of the Parents Anonymous model, aiming to upgrade the evidence base in the federal clearinghouse from “supported” to the highest level, “well supported.”
Work that is ‘deep and real’
Each Parents Anonymous meeting begins with meditation.
The lights are dimmed, and participants close their eyes as they’re encouraged to “drop into their bodies” before the conversations on a monthly theme begin.
The meetings are led by a participant-appointed parent group leader, and each gathering includes a group facilitator with a master’s degree in social work, psychology, early childhood education, or other behavioral science field. The facilitators offer clarification and interpretation as the conversations unfold. Both group leaders and facilitators receive 40 hours of training and shadow other support groups before heading up the discussions.
Before joining the support groups, parents are interviewed about their challenges, goals and needs, as well as their families’ strengths and protective factors, such as social connections and support networks. Accounts of adverse childhood experiences and substance use are kept as anonymized data.
Serving a child welfare system that is overwhelmingly populated by low-income groups and people of color, the organization describes its work as an “anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-classist approach to helping others.”
The program is voluntary for more than half of participants, and the length of participation varies. Some parents attend as a result of court orders in child welfare and custody cases, or they’ve received referral through the juvenile justice system or divorce proceedings.
Whether or not a court official has ordered a parent to attend the groups, Pion-Berlin said, “they still have to decide they want to go on this journey.” They must be present and fully engaged over the two-hour sessions, she added: “We’re not a rubber-stamping program.”
On average, parents attend meetings for roughly three to five months. Hundreds of caregivers are on lists, waiting for a spot to open up. While their parents meet, children can attend similar groups designed for their age group — focusing on social-emotional learning, identifying emotions, breathing techniques and self-regulation strategies.
Prior to the pandemic, the support groups were held in community centers, churches, schools, shelters, mental health clinics, drug and alcohol treatmentprograms, military installations and prisons. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, meetings have been held over Zoom.
Understandably, the conversations are heavy. So each support group ends with an uplifting activity, like giving shout-outs or sharing self-care activities planned for the week ahead. In between meetings, participants are encouraged to call each other or the group leader if they need extra support.
“What parents are doing here is deep and real — not skipping around what the real issues are,” said Pion-Berlin, who has led Parents Anonymous since 1992. The organization also manages a helpline for parents and children that just received $4.7 million from the recently passed California state budget.
‘Supported’ by research
The national clearinghouse of foster care prevention programs ranked Parents Anonymous as “promising,” the second-highest rank on a four-point scale evaluating its evidence base.
California’s statewide clearinghouse rated the support groups “promising” in their effectiveness preventing child abuse and neglect.
The most recent study of the support groups was funded by Parents Anonymous and conducted by researchers at Arizona State University and Evident Change, a research firm that produces risk assessments for child welfare systems. Using county data, researchers compared more than 200 Parents Anonymous participants with similarly situated parents in the child welfare system who did not attend the support groups.
The 2021 study found that within one year, parents who did not participate were twice as likely to have new allegations of child maltreatment substantiated against them. Participants were also far less likely to be the subject of abuse and neglect reports. The study looked at the rate of subsequent removals into foster care between the two groups as well, but found no statistically significant difference.
“The findings are important for the child maltreatment prevention field because Parents Anonymous offers a cost-effective, easily scalable approach to reducing child maltreatment,” the authors concluded. They noted that given the prior history of the parents studied, the results were encouraging.
But they stated that more study is needed: “The findings suggest that participation in Parents Anonymous may have a positive, long-term impact on improving child safety among parents involved in the child welfare system.”
Earlier studies show other promising results. As early as 1978, a published studyfound that in questionnaires of participants, 19% of parents reported physically abusing their children “almost every day,” before attending Parents Anonymous support groups. Immediately after participating, that number dropped to 1%, although it is unknown how long the effect may have lasted.
Additional studies published in 2010 and 2011 found that participation for six months “significantly decreases certain risk factors in parents, such as parenting distress, parenting rigidity, psychological aggression toward children, life stress, intimate partner violence, alcohol use, and drug use.” Participants described an “increased quality of life,” greater emotional and social support, and an improved sense of competence as parents.
Preventative intervention
Maggie Vega first found Parents Anonymous in 2019 when she was isolated with two small children at home, battling postpartum depression and navigating a turbulent time in her marriage. In an interview with The Imprint, she said she found herself resenting her youngest daughter, and riddled with guilt for those feelings. In certain moments, she had even contemplated self-harm.
But at the time, reaching out for mental health care was fruitless: She was put on a waitlist for the rare psychologist in Rialto, California who accepts Medicaid, and is still on that list four years later.
One day, she broke down to a neighbor, who pointed her to Parents Anonymous. The first time she shared in the group, she sobbed. But the other moms cried along with her, she recalled, and offered comforting embraces.
Vega, 36, said the group not only became her community, but helped her avoid losing her children to foster care — a direction she fears she was headed toward had she not received such support.
“It was a prevention for me and my children, to avoid getting taken away,” she said. “Because if I didn’t get this support, this mutual support from parents, I would have probably gone into postpartum psychosis. I was at my lowest point.”
Both Vega and Rios said their children, too, have benefited from support groups run by Parents Anonymous, and their participation has been instrumental in improving family dynamics. Sharing what they each learned after meetings helps to reinforce their new skills. The kids communicate their needs more effectively, even when there’s conflict or uncomfortable topics arise, both moms said.
Now, Rios shared, “I have an open relationship with my children that their feelings and fears can be addressed. They can come to me and tell me: ‘You make me feel like this,’ and it’s not blaming and shaming — it’s communicating, and we’re working through it.”
Date: August 3, 2022
Parents Anonymous® Supports the Empowerment Journey of ALL Youth
Understanding Youths
Parents Anonymous® has been supporting the empowerment journey of Diverse Parents, Children & Youth since 1969 through Evidence-Based programs and practice. Recently, the CDC warned of an accelerating mental health crisis among teens. Many teens have reported feeling “persistently sad or hopeless.” Due to the extended COVID-19 lockdown, depression and anxiety among youth has risen significantly. Coming of age through the pandemic during the last couple of years has created an environment where so many feel the pressures of social isolation resulting in self-doubt, grief, and overall uncertainty. This Pride month, we want to focus on taking action to support mental health healing for underrepresented members of the community. Promoting open-minded interaction with family and friends like using the pronouns that people ask you to is key to valuing the identity of every person.
Connecting with Youth
Some groups were more likely to be affected by severe mental health issues. LGBTQ+ youths, black teens, and especially women were more likely to report suicidal thoughts. What parents and families can do is communicate openly from their heart, share activities with their adolescents (even at school or simply doing homework!), and communicate regularly with school administrators and teachers – even volunteering when it’s possible. Blame and shame must be avoided for young people to open up about scary thoughts and emotions. Feeling safe is key. Ask those critical questions: How are you? How can I support you? Simply showing youths that they have a support system of people who want to help is the first tool in their toolbox against mental health decline. Parents Anonymous® Free Weekly Groups are a great emotional support for improving the well-being of parents, children and youth.
How Parents Can Support Youth
Providing opportunities for youth to develop positive social connections at school, or anywhere outside of the home, helps build resilience by exposing adolescents to their peers. Advocating alongside youth at their schools to provide adequate mental health services, integrating social emotional learning into staff training, and changing discipline policies to address equity issues, can all build safe and supportive environments at school that have a sincere effect on youth. Those who reported feeling connected at school were more likely to be mentally healthier, strengthening vital protective factors for children and youth.
At the end of the day, paying close attention to our children, our parents, and our community overall will provide a supportive environment to address the ups and downs of emotional issues of everyone – especially vulnerable members of our community like LGBTQ+ youth. Asking for Help is a Sign of Strength® – call/text the California Parent & Youth Helpline® at 855-427-2736 or live chat the caparentyouthhelpline.org, 8AM – 8PM 7 days a week for free evidence-based emotional support.
For more from the CDC, find a study summary here.
Parents Anonymous® and the California Parent & Youth Helpline® Featured on Univision Statewide
California Parent & Youth Helpline, Parents Anonymous® Online Groups, and Community Vaccine Pop-Up Clinics were featured on Univision in September of 2021.
The pandemic has disrupted our routines, and if you’re feeling the stress in your family, you’re not alone. Free emotional support is available in all languages at caparentyouthhelpline.org.
La pandemia ha interrumpido nuestras rutinas, y si siente estrés en su familia, no está solo. El apoyo emocional gratuito está disponible en todos los idiomas en caparentyouthhelpline.org.
Below, find the video that describes how Parents Anonymous® has functioned as a source of vital emotional support for parents, children and youth during the pandemic. For Maggie Vega and many more like her, Parents Anonymous® believes that Asking for Help is A Sign of Strength®.
For those who do not speak Spanish, please consider changing the Closed Captioning settings to translate to your language of choice.
A Message from Dr. Lisa On 30 Years of Service
Parenting Through It All
In reflecting on the past 30 years as the President & CEO of Parents Anonymous® Inc., I realize it has truly been a wondrous and beautiful journey, filled with many milestones and continuing challenges for me. This has been a labor of love. Every day, I remind myself that advocating against anti-racist, anti-classist, and anti-sexist policies, laws, and procedures that harm and traumatize Parents, Children, & Youth is necessary for preserving the values of family and well-being.
My most important role in life is being a Mother to two wonderful adult children, along with being a wife, woman, friend, and community member. We must ensure justice and equity are addressed. Peer support has been validated at the community level, and parent leadership with those with lived expertise has been acknowledged, but new, evidence-based structures need to be created that ask and respond to what Parents need help with. We have replaced blame and shame with strength and hope.
I am most proud of our research results increasing safety and enhancing the well-being of all Parents, Children & Youth who attend Parents Anonymous® Groups and use the Helpline. As an organization, we have changed the conversation and outcomes by developing and spreading Shared Leadership® Initiatives and Programs, which continue to be the hallmark for securing meaningful and long-term change. In the next 30 years, we will continue Parents Anonymous® with respect and humility for diverse and empowered Parents, Children & Youth worldwide in order to safeguard positive outcomes, ones that build thriving and resilient communities.
Our theme of National Parent Leadership Month® is Parenting Through It All. Throughout February Parents are being honored and celebrated for all that they do to ensure their personal well-being, enhance the growth and development of their children, support schools, improve workplaces, and improve neighborhoods. We all know that Parents are the unsung heroes of the pandemic. We at Parents Anonymous® believe the future depends on parents who are both courageous and unrelenting. These past 2 years have challenged Parents given the worry, fear, uncertainty, and anxiety a worldwide pandemic has produced with long-term consequences to all of us. No matter what Parents stepped up to create stability in uncertain times, provide uncompromising love and support to see everyone through, and be the rock for their Children & Youth no matter what. We at Parents Anonymous® believe in the strengths of all Parents in good and bad times.
Parents Anonymous® asks individuals, government, philanthropy, and businesses to invest in the hope of the future: Parents, Children & Youth, so no one is left behind, overlooked, or blamed and shamed because Asking for Help is a Sign of Strength®. With Parents in the driver’s seat, we assure a future where empowered Parents, Children & Youth have a brighter future!
Parenting Through It All – Watch the Event!
If you missed our Parenting Through It All online event on Feb 23, 2022, 12 PM PST, watch below to see what you missed. We heard from experts in the field about how parenting is changing, how to get help, and ways we can support parents now. Parents Anonymous® President & CEO, Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin celebrated her 30th anniversary leading support programs for parents, children, and youth with Parents Anonymous®, and she shares her vision for the next 30 years. February was also #NationalParentLeadershipMonth an awareness initiative to apply shared leadership between parents and the organizations supporting them. Parenting is changing rapidly, and it’s not getting easier. A better future for our parents, children, and youth is possible and it all starts with a foundation of resilience.
Helpline for Parents to Get Lifeline in Governor’s New Budget
A helpline providing emergency emotional support for California parents and young people would get a three-year extension under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new budget proposal released this week.
The California Parent and Youth Helpline stands to get $4.7 million to continue its work helping people in distress.
Lisa Pion-Berlin, president and CEO of Parents Anonymous, which runs the helpline as part of its “Raising the Future” programs, said the helpline has received 16,500 calls, texts and chats since it started in the summer of 2020.
“Our calls are up 26% since July of last year,” Pion-Berlin reported. “Every single month, our call volume is going higher and higher.”
In June, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found 70% of parents said they’d had recent mental health challenges, and 50% said they had suicidal thoughts in the past month. You can reach the helpline at 855-427-2736 Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Pion-Berlin said the trained counselors who answer the helpline teach self-calming and mindfulness techniques, help people build their support systems, connect them with weekly, and organize free Parents Anonymous online support groups and other services.
“What they get on the other end that’s so important is somebody listening, who is not blaming and shaming them, and helping them deal with the immediate emotional issue that they’re facing,” Pion-Berlin explained.
The California Legislature has until mid-June to approve a budget.
Disclosure: Parents Anonymous contributes to our fund for reporting on Children’s Issues, Family/Father Issues, and Social Justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.
Parents Anonymous® Pomona Rising at Women’s Health Fair
In partnership with Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez District 52, Parents Anonymous® | Pomona Rising participated in the 2021 Women’s Health Fair, Washington Community Center, Pomona CA held on 30th October, 2021, providing information on COVID-19 Vaccinations and Evidence-Based Parents Anonymous® Services.
Parents Anonymous® Program Recognized as 1 of Only 5 Programs Nationwide To Make a Sustained Impact on Child Safety
Supported Rating by Federal Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse Paves Way for Expansion of Parents Anonymous® Programs.
Parents Anonymous® has been rated as a Supported evidence-based intervention program by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse, only one of five such program designations nationwide, for the effectiveness of Parents Anonymous® in addressing child safety and the prevention of child abuse and neglect. This Supported rating for Parents Anonymous® from the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse is a distinguished honor. As a result of Congress passing the Family First Prevention Services Act, the Administration for Children and Families within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, established the Clearinghouse to conduct objective and transparent review of research on programs intended to provide enhanced support to children and families and prevent foster care placements.
The studies reviewed by the Clearinghouse found that Parents Anonymous® reduced subsequent child maltreatment substantiations by more than half as compared to parents who did not use the program, even after leaving the Parents Anonymous® program a year later. Additionally, the study found that Parents Anonymous® predominately served communities of color, one of the communities in highest need of services. “This is acknowledging the 52 years of evidence-based Parents Anonymous® programs that are raising the future,” says Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin, President and C.E.O. Parents Anonymous® Inc. “Together we can build on the strengths of diverse parents, children and youth throughout America, ensure long-term positive child safety outcomes and mitigate and prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences.”
The opportunity to help more Parents, Children & Youth nationwide rests with states applying for dollar for dollar prevention federal matching funds to provide evidence-based Parents Anonymous® programs. Parents Anonymous® is a proven intervention to keep children out of the child welfare system and ensure child safety by addressing mental health, substance use prevention or treatment, and in-home parenting skills.
The study found that parents who participated in Parents Anonymous® were significantly less likely to experience new referrals and new substantiated referrals to the child welfare system within a year of finishing the program than parents who did not participate in the program. The odds of a parent who finished the program experiencing a new substantiated referral were one third as high as those of parents who did not attend the program. While Parents Anonymous® serves a wide variety of parents, most participating parents from those two California counties are at high risk of repeated system involvement and have considerable histories in the child welfare system. Taken in context, the study findings indicate that the program could help reduce the likelihood of system involvement even for this high-risk group. This study adds to previous studies over the past 51 years showing Parents Anonymous® leads to better outcomes for families.
Parents Anonymous® Pomona Rising COVID-19 Vaccine Outreach Event
Congresswoman Judy Chu acknowledges the extraordinary accomplishments since 1969 and new federal funding for Parents Anonymous®. Also supportive are Claremont Mayor Jennifer Stark, Claremont City Councilmember Ed Reece and Dominick Corey, Senator Portantino’s Office District 44 at Parents Anonymous® | Pomona Rising COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic Event, Hendricks Pharmacy on 26th August, 2021.