ParentPowered Trauma-Informed FAQs
About the Program
What makes this a trauma-informed program?
ParentPowered Trauma-Informed provides families with a parenting curriculum designed to strengthen the protective factors, which are five characteristics or strengths that act to mitigate risks and buffer the effects of trauma:
- Parental Resilience
- Social Connections
- Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development (including literacy, math, and more)
- Concrete Support in Times of Need
- Social and Emotional Competency of Children
In order to provide concrete supports, we facilitate a community asset mapping process, which results in a supplemental set of messages that link families to community resources, such as substance misuse recovery, violence treatment, food, housing, and economic services, job training, and mental health services.
Is it aligned with state and national standards?
Can an org enroll different families in different ParentPowered programs?
We highly recommend that partners consider ParentPowered a community-level family support service. Partners who choose Trauma-Informed may do so because of a high level of trauma in their community; because their state recommends educating all families about the protective factors; or because research shows ACEs are common across all socio-economic groups, ethnicities, and geographies.
What languages is the program available in?
ParentPowered Trauma-Informed is available in English and Spanish. You can always reach out to us about translation options if there are other commonly used languages in your community.
Is this an add-on to ParentPowered Core?
ParentPowered Trauma-Informed is a stand-alone program, purpose-built to meet the specific needs of families impacted by trauma. The program was created through the lens of the SAMHSA 4Rs and based on the Protective Factors Framework. Trauma-Informed leverages the evidence-based approach behind ParentPowered and covers academic learning in Math and Literacy in addition to supporting the social and emotional skills of both kids and parents.
Is the program evidence-based?
ParentPowered Trauma-Informed is an extension of the core ParentPowered family support approach, which has the strongest evidence base in the field with multiple underlying randomized controlled trials. In addition to our own evidence base, the program is informed by multiple years of engagement with mental health experts and agencies, community health workers, parents, and providers, as well as insights from our intensive work with community partners on the front lines of supporting families experiencing trauma.
What age ranges do you serve?
The program provides parenting support for families with children ages birth through 12th grade.
Organization Partners
Is the Trauma-Informed program for schools, Head Starts, or community-based organizations?
The ParentPowered Trauma-Informed program is designed to serve all different organizational types. Our partners include Head Starts, K12 schools and districts, and community-based organizations like United Way and First 5.
Do you work with support organizations, like First 5 or Smart Start or United Way?
Yes! We have lots of experience working with community support organizations.
Is the program appropriate for non-classroom settings?
The program is designed to support families, wherever they are. Our curriculum is delivered via text message, the most accessible technology.
Which countries do you serve?
We work with US-based organizations.
Implementation & Partner Support
What does the implementation process look like?
As soon as you sign a contract, you can upload your family roster. Meanwhile, we guide your team through a community asset mapping process to identify community resources such as substance misuse recovery, violence treatment, food, housing, and economic services, job training, and mental health services. We then integrate these local resources into a community support stream that provides families with messages about priority resources, complementing the messages they are receiving from our trauma-informed curriculum.
How do we get parents signed up?
You can enroll all of your families at once by exporting their data from your student information system or ChildPlus, and uploading it to our secure platform. The only information we need is parents’ phone numbers and home languages, and children’s birthdates or grade levels.
For organizations that do not have parent or caregiver contact information, we can work with you to find the best strategy for your community. Some community organizations partner with schools and childcare centers while others provide the program directly to parents. Contact us to discuss enrollment strategies that can work best for you.
How can we enroll families if we don’t have their phone numbers?
There are multiple routes we can take in case we don’t have families’ phone numbers. Contact us to talk about strategies that will work for your organization.
What happens when families change their phone numbers?
When a family informs our partner (you) about the change, you can simply let us know and we will replace their phone number on our system. If a family’s number stops working, we receive an alert that messages are no longer getting delivered. We identify that number and inform you through our Data & Analytics dashboard.
Can we use social or traditional media to recruit families?
Yes! We can provide you with appropriate language and images that you can share on your social media page or through other media outlets to recruit families.
Can we message parents through the platform?
Absolutely. ParentPowered Trauma-Informed includes a dedicated messaging feature that you can use to send messages to families enrolled in the program. The messages will be sent from a local phone number. Our dedicated messaging system supports one-way messaging to all of your families or a sub-group. Messages can be scheduled in advance, written in multiple languages, and can include links, images, and PDFs.
What kind of data is available?
The ParentPowered dashboard provides data on enrollment, persistence, and the number of messages delivered. We integrate fall, mid-year, spring, and summer family engagement surveys, delivered automatically within the text messaging stream. We ask specific questions related to how we are addressing the protective factors and on resources families would like to be connected with. Both the family engagement survey and usage data are summarized in an end-of-year impact report.
Click rates on community resource links are provided, which indicate which resources are of high value to your community members. The dashboard will also tell you when parent numbers stop working, which can be a sign of distress.
How do you support teachers?
Teachers can sign up for the program, so they get the messages that families receive. Many of the activities we suggest also work in the classroom. Also, the self-care messages are a great match for teachers.
Integrating Community Resources
How do you gather our community resources for the community support stream?
Our team will take you through a community asset mapping process to identify assistance programs, parenting workshops, mental health resources and other community assets. We also can use your needs assessment if you have one or any resource lists you’ve already assembled.
What if we don’t have many resources?
There are national resources we can integrate into the messages. The community asset mapping process can help you identify resources that would be helpful for your community.
Do you collaborate with 211?
Yes! We can work with you and your local 211 provider on this process.
Have there been any issues with community resources not being responsive to the parents?
We do not send out messages until we have confirmed that the resource is responsive. This is a key part of the community asset mapping process. We make sure links work, calendars are up-to-date and someone answers the phone (or a VM message exists) for any phone numbers listed.
Family Experience
What does the implementation process look like?
When you launch your parents they’ll receive a welcome message in both the ParentPowered messaging stream as well as your community support stream, letting them know about the program and how to opt out if they choose to stop receiving messages. We can also provide you with flyers, sample language, and images that you can use to introduce the program to families before they’re enrolled.
How often do messages get sent?
ParentPowered messages are delivered on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Families with multiple children receive 1 message per child each week, with the full weekly curriculum in that text message. Families with one child get one part of the 3-part weekly curriculum per text message.
In addition, families receive one message each week from the community support stream, which is delivered from a separate phone number with a local area code.
Is the program appropriate for kids with developmental delays?
No, ParentPowered Trauma-Informed was not specifically created for children with developmental delays or ODD. That said, we take a strengths-based approach to all of our content and aim for inclusivity, casting as wide a net as possible in all of our activity suggestions. For a program that is more responsive to children’s unique developmental needs we recommend our Personalized Learning Program.
Is the program appropriate for homeless families?
While the causes of trauma vary widely, the buffers for coping with trauma remain the same. The program references routines and activities that can be done at home or in a shelter. We have a wide variety of activities we reference that are out in the world, never include food play, and never require additional materials to do any activity. We incorporated input from people with a variety of lived experiences to inform the development of the program.
Can families opt out?
Families can always opt-out by texting STOP to 70138, as explained in the very first text they receive. You can see which families have opted out in the ParentPowered Dashboard.
If parents are in crisis, can they text in?
We do not take the place of a crisis text line. However, we can link to your crisis text line and give regular reminders to reach out if families are experiencing a crisis.