The Next Generation of Parent Mentors in Healthcare: Standards and Certification
Organization: Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
Primary Contact: Karen Wayman
Grant Amount: $600,000 for 36 months
Date Awarded:
Purpose
Parent mentors are “veteran” parents who share their knowledge, management strategies, and navigation skills with other parents of children with similar conditions or diagnoses. Parents receiving peer mentorship report better adjustment to their role as a parent of a child with chronic illness, a decreased sense of isolation, advocacy skills, improved access to information and resources, and hope for the future. In the case of mentors providing self-management support, evidence shows a decrease in emergency room and clinic visits and an increase in caregiver competence to manage chronic illness. Parent mentor programs across the county vary in the types of support provided and within this emerging area of health care, there are few shared definitions nor agreed upon program standards.
This grant builds on the work of the national Parent Mentor Learning Collaborative and supports the launch of the Parent Mentor Learning Center at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. The learning center will conduct a national survey to identify parent mentor program needs, establish well-defined parent mentor roles (e.g., providing social support, systems navigation, and care coordination), develop standards of practice for parent mentor programs, and create a national Parent Mentor Certificate Program for children’s hospitals that will help build and sustain mentor programs.
