Community Programs & Family Events

Cafes, Coparenting and Community

United Way Suncoast logo

Cafes, Coparenting and Community, funded in 2022 by United Way of the Suncoast, offers real-time parenting supports for families with infants and young children. Parents connect at community events and in the everyday settings where they live. Together with New Visions of the Well, Inc., a community-based provider in south St. Petersburg, the Family Study Center is providing family-friendly supports over a 3-year period to help celebrate and assist families in our community. Supports are available in the ways and places families most wish to receive them – that is, in the neighborhoods where they live, in right-sized quantities, addressing major topics of interest to parents with young children in today’s world.  

Gatherings highlight the importance and impact of infants’ everyday experiences at home. They recognize and encourage parent responsiveness to the child’s dawning communication skills and growing passion for exploring and discovering. Whether at entertaining one-time community-based, family-friendly events or at one of the ongoing “parent cafes” – supportive gatherings for parents with food and fellowship – emphasis is on the joys of parenthood and on the real challenges parents face today raising young children while simultaneously contending with the very real, outside-the-family stressors that impact families’ lives. 

To help center the important social and emotional skills children ultimately need to thrive in daycare and school settings, parents complete the “Ages and Stages Questionnaire – Social and Emotional” (ASQ-SE) to learn about their child’s developmental strengths and areas the child may currently be working on developing. Staff from the Well, supported by USF’s Family Study Center, offer input on children’s ASQ-SE scores and on parenting activities that help support and maximize development. Parents receive family-friendly materials on a wide variety of topics ranging from exploration, play, floor time, and reading to fussy babies, sleep issues, and behavioral challenges. 

One-touch services can be accessed both online (through parent webinars) and in the community (with service tables at community fairs and events). One-time contacts offer information and resources, ASQ-SEs, registration for forthcoming cafes and other community services and programs available from 0-5 partners in St. Petersburg and Pinellas. Recurring cafes (both live and virtual) offer multi-touch opportunities and ways to create a support network. Parents who participate multiple times complete a second ASQ-SE as cafes wrap up. This helps the program compare initial and later child development scores to estimate impact. Another measure, the PICCOLO, focused on developmentally supportive parenting behaviors in four different areas: affection, responsiveness, encouragement, and teaching. 

The program will serve 225 individuals – 125 children birth-to-age 5, and 100 parenting adults - during the project’s first year, and 1000 individuals altogether over the program’s 3-year run.  As many as 50 parents and their children are expected to receive multi-touch supports during the program’s first year.