Parent Café

Building strong, resilient families to help prevent child abuse and neglect.

Parent Cafés are a small, intimate setting where parents and caregivers have an opportunity to talk about their parenting successes and challenges, engage with others, share ideas and learn proven parenting tips and techniques.
Parent Cafés are a place for parents to have their own conversations about keeping their families strong, while gaining awareness of the protective factors that help prevent child abuse and neglect.
Parent Cafés facilitate and foster supportive relationships among parents, by starting with conversations about the things that keep their families strong. Strong, resilient families are key in the prevention of child abuse and neglect.
Parent Cafés are based on the principles of adult learning and family support, and are a gateway to providing parent growth and leadership opportunities.
Relationship building amongst parents is at the heart of the Parent Café. Positive social connections is one of the protective factors that is clearly taught through the parent café.

Being a great parent is part natural and part learned. Children do not come with a manual. Parent Cafés help parents:

Understand their parenting challenges and celebrate their successes
Engage in meaningful conversations with other parents about what matters most
Gain confidence in their own knowledge, skills and wisdom
Find out what supports and resources are available
Build a support network with other parents

Cook Children's Parent Café materials are based upon the evidence-based, primary prevention education program entitled, Community Based Education in Nurturing Parenting^®. This model educates parents about the basic philosophy and practices of Nurturing Parenting^® in an environment that promotes the development of a support network for families. The program is comprised of the following series of 21 independent discussion topics:

The nurturing parent
Ages and stages: infants and toddlers
Boost your child's and teen's brain power
Communicating with respect
Building self-worth
Understanding feelings
Family morals, values and rules
Praise your children and their behavior
Positive discipline strategies
Positive ways to deal with stress and anger
Coping skills for adults
Effective co-parenting
Expectations, boundaries and consequences
Helping children develop a growth mindset
Helping teens deal with stress and relationships
Managing anger within the family
Parenting styles
Self-Regulation – flexible thinking and memory, goal setting and organization, impulse control and thinking skills
Working as a team with your child’s school
Taming the tech monster
Bullying- what is it and what can I do about it?

Hood County for Healthy Children and Wise Coalition for Healthy Children seek to directly engage parents in building the protective factors needed to promote healthy outcomes for their children. The expectation is that the education process and materials will adhere to the highest standards and that parents will be provided a safe environment for learning and networking with other participants:

Parent Cafés will be held in partnership with respected individuals and local organizations with a commitment to helping Hood County for Health Children and/or Wise Coalition for Healthy Children fulfill their visions for child health, well-being and safety in their respective communities.
Parent Cafés will be led by 1-2 facilitators who have been trained by a licensed professional at a Cook Children's Parent Café Facilitator Training.
If applicable, any child care offered by the Parent Café site host must be provided through an approved provider in which caregivers receive background checks and have been approved through a formal process.
If applicable, host virtual PC sessions in a safe, secure, and confidential online environment.
All 21 discussion topics are available.

Questions or comments

If you have any questions or would like more information about our program, please email Aaron Olivares.

To report suspicion of abuse or neglect

If the child is in immediate danger, call 911. If you need to report a suspicion of abuse or neglect, call 1-800-252-5400 or for non-urgent reports go to www.txabusehotline.org.

Parent Café

What is a Parent Café?

What are the benefits of a Parent Café?

What is discussed at a Parent Café?

What are the minimum standards to host or facilitate a Parent Café?

Questions or comments

To report suspicion of abuse or neglect