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How The Children’s Trust Supports Parents in Need

10/28/2024

Parenting Our Children

How The Children’s Trust Supports Parents in Need

US Surgeon General: Parenting Stress is a Health Crisis

Being a parent or caretaker is one of the biggest joys human beings can experience in a lifetime. Watching a child grow, develop, overcome and thrive in this world fills us with a spirit and energy like no other. But it’s also hard work.

Even in the best of times, it can be exhausting, frustrating, infuriating and demoralizing. So, when times are tough all around, it can be downright overwhelming. With recent local, national and global problems seemingly surging, the situation has become critical. So says the US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.

In the summer, the surgeon general and the US Department of Health and Human Services released a 35-page advisory on the “Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents” and the inside look it provided was troubling.

The advisory pointed to 2023 data that showed that “33% of parents report high levels of stress in the past month compared to 20% of other adults.” Another data point mentioned that almost half (48 percent) of parents “say that most days their stress is completely overwhelming compared to 26 percent of other adults.”

What’s causing increased stress?

The advisory pointed to a variety of factors which have pushed parental stress beyond its typically high points, including financial difficulties that are increasing, children’s health and safety issues, parental isolation and loneliness, technology and social media, and uncertainty about children’s futures.

In Miami-Dade, those general pressure-inducing topics can be exaggerated due to skyrocketing housing costs, traffic woes, our unique challenges in keeping our kids safe, as well as other factors. Though the pandemic might be in the rearview mirror, the effects it had on children and parents are still very much a present-day problem.

Recent local issues like community violence, racism and other triggers can have South Florida parents sinking closer and closer into over-anxiety and depression. Add to that recent and still ongoing youth mental health crisis, and parents are in dire need of support.

How The Trust Supports Parents in Need

While The Trust’s own community survey in 2023 found that most parents in Miami- Dade feel supported, still a large portion (up to 40 percent) felt only a “little supported” or not “supported at all.” The Children’s Trust knows that the best way to ensure a bright future for Miami-Dade County’s children is to make sure their parents can care for them. It’s no coincidence that its focus is on children and parents, as both are inextricably linked. Most of The Trust’s primary initiatives involve parents directly.

The Trust’s Parenting initiative includes everything from its Parent Club, which offers free workshops throughout the county (in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole), that teach strategies for better parenting, including how to reduce anxiety for parents and children. There are also specialized parenting programs which offer home visits, office and clinical sessions and more. The Parenting initiative also offers a host of other programs, like the Book Club, Books for Free and more which help with everyday parenting issues.

The Trust’s Family & Neighborhood Supports (FNSP) initiative supports parents and families that are going through particularly challenging times. This initiative offers comprehensive and individualized services for children, youth and their families experiencing challenges that may limit them from realizing their full health, social, educational and economic potential.

The Trust’s other main initiatives, early learning, youth development, and health and wellness support parents by offering services through its extensive provider network that helps parents with everything from high-quality child care, to summer camp and after-school programs, to free health clinics at schools or in mobile clinics.

The parental stress crisis is real and present throughout the country. But in Miami-Dade County, The Children’s Trust, its funded-providers, and partners are working to alleviate the factors that overwhelm parents and help them focus on caring for their children. Learn more at www.TheChildrensTrust.org.