Creating a Safe Space for Connection and Healing
Alcohol Drug Services – Be Strong Families: Parent Café
Summary
The Foundation for Healthy High Point funded Alcohol Drug Services of Guilford (ADS) to implement and pilot the evidence-based Be Strong Families – Parent Café program in High Point. The program creates a safe, peer-led space to build family resilience and strengthen community relationships by engaging parents and caregivers around the Strengthening Families Protective Factors. In its first year, the program successfully demonstrated significant impact, with participants reporting a substantial increase in parenting knowledge and a marked decrease in stress levels.
Highlights
- Evidence-Based, Peer-to-Peer Model: The Café model successfully cultivated a trusted, judgement-free environment where parents and caregivers connect with each other as equals, fostering vulnerability and mutual support.
- Significant Impact on Family Wellbeing: Quantitative results showed over 86% of participating parents reported a decrease in stress levels, and over 80% increased their knowledge of parenting strategies and child development milestones.
- Crucial Community Partnerships: Deep collaboration with organizations like Operation Xcel was vital for overcoming initial recruitment challenges and providing high-quality child enrichment, while the Foundation’s network expanded ADS’s reach.
Funding
The Foundation for Healthy High Point provided $50,000 in 2024 and another $50,000 in 2025 to Alcohol and Drug Services of Guilford to implement and pilot the Be Strong Families – Parent Café program. Funding supported training parent-peer leaders and hosting monthly Cafés. Operation Xcel provided staff to organize and staff the child enrichment activities and paid for some of the room rental fees. Additional pro-bono support was provided by the High Point Children’s Museum who donated 50 guest passes to distribute to families.
The Foundation for a Healthy High Point works with partners to transform conditions that impact health and well-being of Greater High Point residents by investing in and engaging the community to address upstream social influences on health.
Partner
For over 50 years, Alcohol and Drug Services of Guilford has provided substance abuse treatment and prevention services to residents of the Piedmont Triad and Central North Carolina. ADS’s Prevention and Early Intervention Services focus broadly on preventing and delaying the onset of substance use among young people. ADS’s approach is rare: organizations treating addiction do not typically have a prevention arm that is actively working in communities and partnering with community organizations including parents and youth, nonprofit organizations, and law enforcement.
Need
During the last decade, two health crises – the opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic – harmed many in the High Point community. The opioid epidemic ravaged High Point families peaking in 2017-2018 when High Point was known as the heroin capital of North Carolina. Displaced children have been raised by family members and others were put into foster care. Then in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit many of the same families. In addition to deaths from the virus, social isolation during the pandemic lockdown led to an increase in substance use and mental health struggles.
These two community health crises resulted in economic instability, particularly high unemployment levels, that contributed to high child poverty rates and stress on social and economic safety nets. Ultimately, the collision of these events destabilized many High Point households, overwhelming local support systems and leading to an increased risk of children entering foster care due to untreated parental addiction and mental health struggles.
Project Description
The Parent Café Model is founded on the Strengthening Families Protective Factors framework developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, a national, non-profit organization focused on achieving racial, economic, and social justice and working to ensure all children and families thrive through evidence-based policies and community support. The Parent Café model is designed to be a “solution-oriented, strength-based parent-to-parent approach” for teaching parents and caregivers protective factors to facilitate transformation and resilience within families and to build community relationships.
At Parent Cafés, certified parent facilitators lead table discussions about five protective factors: Parental Resilience; Social Connections; Concrete Support in Times of Need; Parenting and Child Development; and Social and Emotional Competence of Children. The first factor, resilience, is a particularly critical message for families living in communities hit by the opioid and COVID-19 pandemic, like High Point. Empirical evidence demonstrates that the five protective factors decrease parenting isolation and stress thus reducing child maltreatment. Collectively, the five factors speak to the capacity of parents and other caregivers to overcome difficulties through supportive communities, like the Parent Café.
In 2024, Sage Chioma, ADS Prevention Project Coordinator, and Melinda McDonald, ADS Prevention Services Director applied for funding from the Foundation for a Healthy High Point to bring the first Be Strong Families – Parent Café program to Guilford County. ADS recruited parents to attend an expert-led, two-day long training from Be Strong Families to gain the knowledge and skills needed to be Café hosts. The training included the philosophical foundation and research on the protective factors, along with how to create a welcoming environment that encourages parental interaction and engagement.
The Parent Café invites parents and caregivers to come as parents first, de-emphasizing their professional capacities. This levels the playing field and encourages participants to be their authentic selves—as mothers, fathers, grandmothers, aunties, etc. Participants set aside their professional roles and relate to each other as equals, fostering vulnerability and mutual support. A core component of the model is that passive observation is not permitted: if someone is in the room, they are expected to be fully participating. This intentional structure cultivates a unique level of trust among all who join the Café.
While parents participate in the Café discussions, their children are provided with high-quality youth enrichment activities hosted by Operation Xcel. ADS and Operation Xcel have partnered for over 10 years, with ADS previously providing youth prevention specialists who implemented various curricula for Operation Xcel’s summer programming. In addition to offering youth enrichment, Operation Xcel was instrumental in recruiting the first set of parents trained to be program facilitators. This partnership was crucial in overcoming the initial concerns parents had about participating in a program organized by Alcohol and Drug Services (ADS), which they feared was intended only for those struggling with addiction. Operation Xcel proved an effective recruitment partner because its client base includes parents from diverse backgrounds, unlike the more targeted clientele of ADS.
“The Parent Cafe, a monthly partnership that we share with Alcohol Drug Services
– Charlene Gladney, Executive Director of Operation Xcel
implementing the Be Strong Families model, has been one of our most viable family
engagement initiatives. Assembling parents to caucus about issues that capture their
interest, providing tools and resources to strengthen their ‘parenting walk’, and boundless
peer support (with networking) have been instrumental to our emerging confident
parents. With this newfound confidence, parents have been transitioning into change
advocates not only for their families but also for their peers.”
Results
Between October 2024 and June 2025, nine Cafés were hosted by ADS staff and community members, including parents, caregivers, and educators, who attended the two-day training course and became certified Parent Café facilitators and table hosts. ADS staff reported that attendance at the first Parent Cafés started slowly, but grew steadily each month. By the end of the first year, 36 families participated in one or more Cafés with 28 to 32 participants per session during the Cafés held in the Spring of 2025.
Parent Café participants were predominantly African American mothers, though a number of Spanish-speaking families attended, with translation support provided by Spanish-speaking ADS staff. Significantly, a growing number of fathers attended a Café. One father, staff recall, initially hung back after dropping off his son, who was enjoying the activities with other children. This father is the primary caregiver for his children while his wife travels. Staff invited him to join a table; he has attended every Café since then, completed the fall training session, and now serves as a table host. Over time, it has become clear to staff that people were attending not just for the free food, but for the connection with other parents and kids.
“When I looked at the
testimonies of the
participants, I was almost
moved to tears to see what
good this is actually doing for
our community.”
– Sage Chioma, ADS
Prevention Project Coordinator
One challenge encountered during the pilot year of the program was retaining the community members who participated in the Parent Café trainings. While 18 people were trained during the first year, only 11 served as hosts or facilitators over the course of the year. ADS organizers found that most parents didn’t follow through with hosting Cafés because of life changes: they moved, changed jobs, or just got too busy.
On a positive note, the 11 parents who maintained connection with the program have taken on leadership roles beyond hosting tables at the Cafés. Some have developed content, while others assisted with program planning and logistics. Beyond the direct impact on participating families, Sage described the impact of the Café as radiating out into the community. The parents who are trained are able to take what they learned and improve their communities. They spread information about the Café and share community resources with others they meet. Some participants are making plans to organize their own Cafés in their own communities.
Overwhelmingly, feedback from Café participants was positive, including feelings of increased social support, renewed confidence in parenting, and a sense of empowerment. Key findings from the year-end survey, are that over 80% of parents reported they increased their knowledge of parenting strategies and child development milestones. Additionally, 86% of parents reported a decrease in their stress levels since participating in the program. Staff attribute the decrease in stress levels to parents learning listening skills, which allows them to participate in conversations in which they are both listening and feeling heard by others. The connections they develop with other parents who are going through similar parenting situations adds to relieving parental stress. As staff shared, even just getting out of their houses, not having to plan, cook, and clean up a meal, and spending time with other adults while their children are engaged in fun and educational programs is a stress relief. Additionally, the program serves as a hub where parents can learn about and get connected with resources that can be helpful to them. Their no cell phone policy allows participants to be fully present and creates a safe, distraction-free, judgement-free zone where parents can share stories with each other. As Sage Chioma stated, “The power of story should never be underestimated. It’s good medicine.”
The learning and program adjustments during the first year successfully resolved initial challenges, allowing the second year of the program to start strong. Ten people participated in the two-day training and the first Café was held in September 2025. The second training included a number of parents who participated during the first year and are interested in hosting their own Cafés and seeking funding to expand the initiative to additional locations. The December 2025 Café had record attendance levels with 37 participants. As Melinda McDonald, ADS Prevention Services Director, shared, the Café has “grown so tremendously from where it started!”
Beyond its direct impact on participating families, the Café initiative has significantly strengthened ADS’s collaboration with community organizations, including several fellow Foundation for a Healthy High Point funded partners. As noted, Operation Xcel was instrumental in providing youth engagement activities. During the first year of implementation, ADS also partnered with Oakview Recreation Center to host the initial three sessions and with Carolina Core Wellness to conduct two-day facilitator training and four parent Cafés. Effective January 2026, ADS will transition the location of the program to the YWCA while continuing to partner with Operation Xcel. This move will not only provide facilities that better support the program’s logistical needs but also allow ADS to engage with new communities.
“I’m going to take the training so I can be a leader and lead some of the Parent
Parent Café father
Cafés. I’m going to try to get my family involved, and definitely me getting
involved as much as possible. So I can shine my light a little brighter for my
family, for myself, and for my community.”
Lessons Learned
In reports submitted to the Foundation and interviews for this report, Alcohol and Drug Services staff shared that:
- Maintaining fidelity to the program model is important and challenging. ADS Staff called the Parent Café model “perfect” and emphasized their efforts to adhere as closely as possible to the evidence-based model. This required a search for an adequate location with separate rooms for food, parent discussions, and children’s activities, one that would allow parents to linger beyond a specific hard stopping time. These logistical adjustments have led them to the YWCA, which they believe will be a better fit than their previous locations.
- Expanding community partnerships through the Foundation’s network. More than just providing funding, the Foundation for a Healthy High Point has expanded ADS’s network of community partners. Despite working in the prevention field for 21 years, ADS found parents to be the hardest group to reach. Parents are busy and pulled in many directions; therefore, they are often underserved. The Foundation’s promotion of the Café in its newsletter and suggestion to move the Café to the YWCA helped raise ADS’s profile among other community organizations who work with families, potentially increasing attendance at the Café. ADS staff are grateful to the Foundation for helping them to reach new groups of parents and are proud of the engagement with parents they have cultivated over the past two years.
- Braided funding and collaboration. The Parent Cafés are an example of “braided funding” – the blending financial resources from multiple sources to support shared goals. ADS and Operation Xcel have “braided” their funding: ADS provided funds to support the organization and facilitation of the Parent Cafés, while Operation Xcel provided funding for children programming and covered a portion of room rental costs. Additionally, Operation Xcel took the lead on collecting demographic and participation data to inform evaluation efforts. This collaboration demonstrates how grants to multiple agencies can be used collectively to further their complimentary missions, rather than working in silos.
- Becoming a known and trusted prevention partner. One of ADS’s core strategic goals is to become a known and trusted partner in prevention within the community. The implementation of the Parent Café program has served as an effective mechanism for achieving this goal. By hosting the Parent Café, ADS prevention staff have been able to connect with a critical demographic—parents—who they otherwise struggle to engage through their traditional prevention activities. The Cafés provide a relaxed, supportive, and open environment which help make ADS’s efforts more relatable and accessible to the families it serves, thereby solidifying its role as a vital community prevention resource.
What’s next?
ADS is looking forward to the second year of Parent Cafés while also looking ahead to how to sustain the program after funding from the Foundation ends, including investigating new sources of support and expanding partnerships with other community organizations so that funding can be maximized. ADS will continue to work to recruit a more diverse group of parents, working with a number of organizations to promote the program including Guilford County Schools and in the Foundation’s newsletter.