Our Blog
Get plugged into the latest Be Strong Families news, initiatives, and blog articles — all central to creating transformative conversations that nurture the spirit of family, promote well-being and prevent violence.
More Blogs
Why Are Cafés So Great? - Public Health Innovation and the Epidemic of Loneliness
In recent years, about one-in-two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic cut off so many of us from friends, loved ones, and support systems, exacerbating loneliness and isolation.
Why Are Cafés So Great? – Cafés and Healing Trauma
Trauma, especially trauma that is experienced in early childhood, can have a significant and lasting impact on an individual's emotional, cognitive, and social development. It can disrupt the natural progression of attachment, self-concept, and understanding of the world and interpersonal dynamics. As a result, this can set unhealthy patterns of relationships…
Why Are Cafés So Great? – Café as a Type of Therapeutic Mental Health Service
The main goal of mental health services is to help individuals achieve better mental and emotional well-being. If you bracket for a moment the assumption that all such services need to be provided by licensed professionals according to a medical model including diagnosis and treatment including medication (which are not necessarily super effective in many cases), Cafés do many of the things that therapeutic mental health services do — and for some people they even work better than conventional, evidence-based interventions. They can also be catalysts and gateways to accessing professional mental health services.
Why Are Cafés So Great? - Crisis Navigation
Our services help people to help themselves by building their sense of efficacy (you can do it), finding their voice, strengthening their support systems and community, developing social and emotional skills, opening up to help and to learning — with and from each other.
Revolutionizing ACEs Prevention: Unveiling the Science Behind Parent Cafés
In a collaboration spanning the better part of three years, Be Strong Families has proudly partnered with the Early Childhood Innovation Network (ECIN) in Washington, D.C. as they explore the outcomes and positive impact of Parent Café participation on parents, caregivers, and their families. This groundbreaking research effort, with the support of BSF, has recently culminated in a significant milestone…
Sustaining Your Parent Cafés
Are you part of a robust Parent Café effort with a dynamic team of parents leading the Cafés and seats filled regularly? Is funding for your effort slated to expire? Be Strong Families would like to assist with ensuring that your Café effort continues to thrive. We want to be your partner in sustaining Cafés and will be available to collaborate on fundraising activities, evaluation efforts, and promotion. Let us know what you need…
Parent Café Evaluation Highlights
Since Be Strong Families (BSF) first pioneered the Parent Café approach in 2007, hundreds of programs In the US and internationally have adopted the approach, reaching thousands of parents and families through deep, personal conversations designed to facilitate transformation and healing. In 2019 we started the National Parent Café Evaluation Project to be able to share the impact of Parent Cafés. Fifty-five percent of our partners participated in the National Parent Café Project. The following are key trends in data collected in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Good Community News!
Board Member Sandy Baba shares Office of Head Start webinar titles “Supporting Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Families: The Head Start Program Perspective” by Dr. Jerry Yang at Kai Ming Head Start Program
The Philadelphia Experience with Parent Cafés
On August 15, 2018, the Philadelphia Department of Human Services held their fourth annual Strengthening Families Summit, which debuted this video introducing Parent Cafés from the perspective of parent leaders.
In recent years, about one-in-two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic cut off so many of us from friends, loved ones, and support systems, exacerbating loneliness and isolation.