Parent Connectors
Parent Connectors is parent-to-parent intervention developed to provide support for families of youth with emotional-behavioral disorders who are involved in special education. The intervention uses weekly phone calls with a trained parent—we call them a Parent Connector-- who also has a child with these same types of issues. Families struggling with their child's emotional and behavioral challenges really appreciate the perspectives of another parent that has walked the same road. Our trained parents encourage participants to engage in their child's school, mental health services, and the family's informal support network, with the goal of improving the academic and mental health outcomes of these youth.
Here is a video with an overview of Parent Connectors.
Program Description
Parent Connectors has three primary components
providing emotional support to families, encouraging positive attitudes towards services, and
providing information support. The aspect of encouraging positive attitudes towards services is based on the Theory of Planned Behavior by Ajzen (1985). The idea is that families will be more likely to experience positive change if they have positive social supports or norms, believe that they have some control or influence over their child's services, and if they believe that engaging in their child's school/services could have a positive benefit for their child.
Parent Connectors is designed to be implemented by trained parents of a child with an emotional/behavioral condition with a trained supervisor providing weekly team supervision (either a licensed mental health practitioner or a peer support specialist with prior supervision experience of peer-to-peer services). Services consist of about one phone call per week for six to nine months. We have a manualized training and implementation monitoring process to support high-quality implementation of services. We have been exploring adaptations of our model for other settings. For example,
Parent Connectors was recently adapted to be used with young adults and adolescents with serious mental illness (SMI) after experiencing their first instance of psychosis.
Here is a video that explains more about how
Parent Connectors works.
An Evidence-Based Program
Parent Connectors is rated as “Promising Research Evidence" on the
California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare.
Previous research has shown that the
Parent Connector program can increase self-efficacy and empowerment of families, as well as help to lower a caregiver's mental health issues and stress. Two pilot studies have demonstrated positive results, as has a feasibility study using
Parent Connectors in the day school on Boys Town's Home Campus. Most recently, a randomized trial in Nebraska and Iowa was conducted with the families of middle-schools students receiving special education services for emotional or behavioral disturbance. We found that families that had a Parent Connector were 63% more likely to feel increased comfort talking with their child's educators and 28% more like to feel an increase in their knowledge of special education services.
Click here for video with Drs. Kristin Duppong Hurley and Matthew Lambert highlighting research findings from this study.
For more information on
Parent Connectors research please contact Dr. Kristin Duppong Hurley.
For information on
Parent Connectors training, please contact
Tricia Monzón
Relevant research studies on Parent Connectors:
Cervantes, P.E., Gendler, C., Markowitz, L., Rose, M., Shorter, P., Mason, S., Hernandez, T., & Hoagwood, K.E (2024). Adapting the Parent Connector program for caregivers of adults with SMI: the Family Connector experience. npj Mental Health Research 3, 40.
doi.org/10.1038/s44184-024-00079-6
Duppong Hurley, K., Farley, J., & Huscroft-D'Angelo, J. (2022). Assessing treatment integrity of parent-to-parent phone support for families of students with emotional and behavioral disturbance.
School Mental Health, 14, 35-48. doi.org/10.1007/s12310-021-09448-4
Duppong Hurley, K., Synhorst, L., Lambert, M. C., Farley, J., Trout, A., & Huscroft-D'Angelo, J. (2021).
Parent Connectors: An efficacy study of peer-support for parents of middle school youth with emotional disturbance. IES Final Report.
Duppong Hurley, K., & Huscroft D'Angelo, J. (2018). Parent Connectors: A parent-to-parent support program feasible for rural settings.
Rural Special Education Quarterly, 37(4), 251-256. doi.org/10.1177/8756870518785149
January S. A., Duppong Hurley, K., Stevens, A., Kutash, K., Duchnowski, A.. & Pereda, N. (2016). Evaluation of a community-based peer support program for parents of at-risk youth with emotional and behavioral difficulties.Journal of Child and Family Studies,
25(3), 836-844 doi: 10/1007/s10826-015-0271-y
Kutash, K., Duchnowski, A. J., Green, A. L., & Ferron, J. (2013). Effectiveness of the Parent Connectors program: Results from a randomized controlled trial.
School Mental Health, 5(4), 192-208. 10.1007/s12310-013-9106-4
Kutash, K., Duchnowski, A. J., Green, A. L., & Ferron, J. (2011). Supporting parents who have youth with emotional disturbances through a parent-to-parent support program: A proof of concept study using random assignment.
Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 38(5), 412-427. 10.1007/s10488-010-0329-5