Promotion of Parent Cafe
Parent Cafe is a project that started to provide physically and emotionally safe spaces where parents and caregivers discuss the challenges and victories of raising a family. It is hosted by various churches in Daytona Beach, Florida. The project utilizes a three-module curriculum to provide learning objectives associated with Adverse Childhood Experiences, Strengthening Families Protective Factors and Approach, and Engaging Families Using the Protective Factors and the Parent Café Model, which is currently being provided through the Florida Department of Health in Volusia County through the Reducing Overdose through Community Approaches project.
Parent Cafes are structured to help parents cope and bounce back from challenges, provide connections with friends, family members, neighbors, and others in a community who provide emotional support and concrete assistance to parents, provide adequate information about raising young children and expectations for their behavior and needs, give access to basic needs, such as health care, mental health care, and informal support, such as emergency childcare and nutritional care and help parents understand a child's ability to interact positively with others and effectively communicate his or her emotions. The main objective of the Parent Cafes is to provide five protective factors that allow caregivers to engage in meaningful conversations with one another based on their personal experiences about one or more of the protective factors, which, in turn, makes caregivers better and more understanding in time.