Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) Program
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Parenting an anxious child can be challenging and frustrating. But it’s not something that has to be done alone.
HCPSS’ Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) program, facilitated under the HCPSS Office of Social Work Services, brings together parents of anxious children and provides them with both a forum to connect and share their experiences as well as an opportunity to learn strategies to better support their anxious children.
SPACE training empowers parents to change their behavior in ways that will help reduce their child’s anxiety. The program, originally developed by Yale Child Study Center Director Dr. Eli Libowitz, is specifically designed for parents of children and adolescents with anxiety issues, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and other related problems.
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Program Details
- Open to parents/guardians of children in kindergarten-Grade 12
- Offered virtually and in person at locations across Howard County
- Facilitated by two HCPSS school social workers, counselors or psychologists
- Runs once a week for 7 weeks. Each session is 1.5 hours long
- Offered several times during the school year
- Free and voluntary
Concepts covered in the SPACE program may include:
- Being a non-anxious presence
- Supportive statements
- Managing big emotions
- Identifying family accommodations
- Mapping and choosing an accommodation
- Making a plan
- Recruiting a support team
Program Benefits
Parents can benefit from participating in SPACE in a variety of ways, including:
- Increased parental knowledge of anxiety and its impact on family functioning
- Decreased parent and child anxiety and increase resilience over time
- Increased parent efficacy
- New skills to support child wellbeing
- Better emotional regulation for the parent and for the child
- Strengthened school and family relationships
- Increased child’s autonomy
Program Enrollment
Parents can refer themselves to SPACE by emailing socialworkservicesspace@hcpss.org. Groups are usually held every fall and every spring of a school year.
For More Information
For more information about SPACE, contact the HCPSS social worker at your child’s school or email socialworkservicesspace@hcpss.org.