Building on the Resiliency of California Families in the Time of Covid-19
Qualitative Analysis of the Parents Anonymous® California Parent & Youth Helpline®
The Covid-19 Pandemic introduced unique stressors into the lives of California parents and youth. In an effort to mitigate some of those stressors, Parents Anonymous® launched the California Parent & Youth Helpline (“the Helpline”), a free service that offers a combination of telephone, live chat and text-based emotional support. This report highlights the most common problems that prompted calls/texts/live chats to the Helpline and describes how the counselors used a combination of research-based psychological practices and parenting strategies to support families in resolving conflicts, building resilience, addressing mental health crises, and promoting safety and well-being during one of the most isolating and challenging times for families in modern California history. The California Parent & Youth Helpline is part of the nonprofit’s statewide First Responder System program for families that also includes Parents Anonymous® weekly online support groups for parents and their children and youth of all ages.
The purpose of the California Parent & Youth Helpline is to offer 7-day a week, 12-hour a day, culturally-responsive emotional support. Services are provided by clinically trained counselors as a therapeutic intervention. The program model helps parents and youth to build on their own strengths to solve their own problems, rather than operating as an advice line. The model includes referrals to Parents Anonymous® Groups and other services to help families with resolving problems like inadequate access to housing or food, but the most important niche of the service is as a therapeutic intervention.
Past research has shown that Parents Anonymous® support groups significantly reduce the risk of child maltreatment (Burns et al. 2021). The Helpline adheres to the same principles, and uses the same strategies, as the support groups. As with the groups, the four therapeutic processes behind the Helpline are mutual support (participants receive and give support), parent leadership, shared leadership, and personal growth and change. The Helpline uses a variety of research-based parenting interventions, and established mental health and well-being interventions, such as encouraging quality family time and teaching self-care. The Parents Anonymous® intervention is designed to address multiple well-researched routes for improving child outcomes. The intervention introduces parents to basic parenting skills, such as techniques for providing consistent discipline. They also work on improving parent sense of self-efficacy, which gives parents the confidence to persist in using the skills they have developed. In addition, the intervention addresses barriers to effective parenting, notably anxiety and depression. And finally, the intervention works to improve the relationship between children and their parents. Children do better when they believe their parent cares about them, and when children feel better, it can reinforce parents’ positive behaviors, thus contributing to long-term change (Sandler et al. 2011).
The program served 10,356 parents, youth and children from every county in California, and although most callers/texters chose not to disclose their race or ethnicity, the participants are reflective of the diversity of California. Of the participants who did disclose their race or ethnicity, a majority were Latinx. This may be reflective of Parents Anonymous® longstanding history of serving Latinx parents, children and youth in Southern California or may relate to the need for mental health services among Latinx families in California. Program staff speak English and Spanish and served families in both languages as needed. Translation services were available to parents, youth and children who did not speak either language.