REACH Parent Support Projects

Parent Empowerment Programs

Parent advocates are often parents of children with mental illness who are tasked to help parents like themselves gain access to services and develop effective relationships with mental health providers or teachers. Projects in New York, California, Texas, Utah, and Washington are testing the effectiveness of parent empowerment manuals and training with groups of parent advocates. These projects improve communication between parents, providers and teachers to gain high quality care for children with emotional and behavioral disorders.

Action Signs Project

Despite well-documented levels of emotional and behavioral problems in the nation’s youth, studies have shown that most youth with mental health problems are not identified. This federally- supported project was designed to develop key warning or "action" signs of children's mental health problems through scientific data analysis and feedback from nationwide focus groups with parents, teachers, providers and adolescents.