WEST FRANKFORT, Ill. – Centerstone, a national leader in behavioral health care, will host a Parent Peers Empowering Parents (PPEP) Virtual Coffee & Tea open discussion for parents on Tuesday, October 27 from 10 a.m. to noon.

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All parents are welcome to attend the event, which will focus on parenting during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Please join by either:

PPEP meetings started earlier this year and are regularly held to provide support, education and inspiration for all Southern Illinois parents. While the meetings are usually held in-person throughout the region, they are now being held via video/telephone due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The aim of the group is to empower parents, to allow them to be heard and to provide parent peer support,” said Niki Grajewski, Clinical Manager at Centerstone.

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In December, Centerstone announced that it had received a $2.1 million, six-year grant from the Illinois Children’s Healthcare Foundation (ILCHF) to improve the mental health of children and communities throughout Southern Illinois. PPEP was created as a result of the grant.

“Among the goals of this ILCHF-funded programs are to improve parental engagement, decrease caregiver stress, and increase peer-provided services in our project area,” said Grajewski. “PPEP will be provided mostly by parent peer supporters, parents with experience navigating the mental health system. They will support, inform and help parents build their own capacity for supporting their families.

“We wanted to provide multiple options in several communities to make it easy for parents to get involved and decrease transportation barriers,” Grajewski said.

All parents in Southern Illinois are welcome. There is no fee to join and no commitment required to participate.

For more information or to RSVP, contact Brandy Moore at (618) 457-6703, ext. 7772, or brandy.moore@centerstone.org.

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