ENERGY IN ACTION – EPISODE 042
Empowering Parents Nationwide
Marsha Quinn is the parent of two children who have Autism. As the Co Executive Director for Parent to Parent USA, she joins us to share the organization’s mission and the resources they provide to parents of children with disabilities.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Can you tell us about Parent to Parent USA?
Parent to Parent USA was started about 50 years ago with a group of moms in Nebraska who wanted to provide parents of children with disabilities with peer to peer emotional support. Parent to Parent USA now has 36 statewide alliance members across the US and we’re growing to all 50 states and territories. The mission of Parent to Parent USA is to ensure that all families have access to peer to peer emotional support. A family of an individual with any disability or special healthcare need can contact us for help and we will match them with a trained support parent. It’s a free intervention that we find helps people get through life and get through their child’s disability or diagnosis.
What does volunteer training consist of?
It’s all research and evidence-based training. We train on self care, cultural competency or humility, active listening, grief and many other elements. Each of our alliance members have their own training. Part of the process is ensuring each person is put into a database and categorized so they can be matched based on varying parent needs or diseases.
How does Parent to Parent USA expand and develop into additional areas?
We’ve created strong and robust committees between the board and volunteers from the network, part of which is a membership committee. One of the membership committee’s goals is to grow to all 50 states, to better engage with our existing members, and offer more value for memberships through training, engagement, and networking opportunities. As a committee, we’re seeking other organizations in states we’re not in that we can partner with, then we reach out to see if they’re interested in adopting our program.
