Helpfulness of Parent to Parent Support Among Parents of Children with Autism
Method: This study used a longitudinal qualitative design guided by grounded theory methods. Participants were recruited from a parent matching program in a southern state and included 6 staff, and 19 mothers of children with autism (11 mentees and ten mentors involved in 13 matches). Mothers were diverse with respect to race, their children’s ages, autism severity and time since diagnosis. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted once with program staff. Mentees and mentors were interviewed before and repeatedly after their support relationship began for approximately six months. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analyzed in ATLAS.ti.7 using coding, constant comparisons, theoretical sampling to develop themes and their interrelationships.
Results: The analyses revealed emotional, social and practical benefits for mentees as well as barriers and facilitators to beneficial outcomes. Emotional benefits included feeling understood, increased hope, security in knowing help is available, and decreased emotional distress and feelings of social isolation. Social benefits included non-stigmatizing social interaction for self and children and linkages to other supportive networks. Practical benefits included information on resources and insider tips on addressing children’s needs and navigating service systems. The most important facilitators of beneficial outcomes were similarities between parents especially in their children’s experiences, feeling connected to each other, friendly dispositions of parents, and open availability and genuineness of the parent mentor, and mentees’ readiness to engage in the helping process. The most important barriers were dissimilarities in children’s experiences, difficulties maintaining contact, parent mentors' giving equal or greater focus to their own problems, conflicting expectations for the parent mentors' role, and an unpleasant disposition of either parent.
Conclusion and Implications: Parent matches can be an effective option for providing social support to parents of children with autism, enhancing their coping and quality of life. To better facilitate beneficial outcomes social workers in these programs should emphasize matching for child similarity and parents’ time availability, outline clear expectations to mentees of the scope of parent mentors’ roles, and create monitoring strategies to ensure mentors are feeling supported and managing their personal problems.