Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) Program

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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Fall 2025 SPACE Program

HCPSS will offer five SPACE groups in Fall 2025 in a combination of virtual and in-person formats. Four of the groups will be conducted in English; the fifth will be conducted in Spanish. The groups include:

Two groups for parents/guardians of middle and high school students (one virtual and one in-person)
Two groups for parents/guardians of elementary students (one virtual and one in-person)
One group for parents/guardians who are Spanish speaking and have students in any grade level (virtual)

All groups will participate in weekly sessions, starting the week of October 13, 2025 and ending the week of December 1, 2025.

In addition, this year, HCPSS is partnering with Yale University to conduct a research study focusing exclusively on SPACE groups with parents of elementary students (K – 5). Parents/guardians interested in participating in the research study should indicate their interest on the SPACE registration form.

Parents/guardians interested in participating in SPACE should register by September 26, 2025. Please note that groups tend to fill up quickly; depending on the demand, parents/guardians who register may be placed on a waitlist to participate for a future SPACE group.

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 in the fall and spring of 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

For More Information

For more information about SPACE, contact the HCPSS social worker at your child’s school or email socialworkservicesspace@hcpss.org.