Parent Mental Wellness

Are you a parent in Lancaster County looking for a “Moment to Breathe” for yourself?
Join a community of parents for mental wellness support, connection, and self-care each month. Our group sessions are designed to create a supportive and family-friendly environment with added conveniences to ensure your experience is positive and rewarding.

Moment to Breathe Parent Group

Touchstone Foundation in partnership with Community Action Partnership of Lancaster County, hosts a monthly group for parents in Lancaster County.  

This group aims to support parents with practical guidance on mental wellness, self-care, and effective family connections, ultimately fostering youth mental wellness for our children.

What We Offer – Free to Attendees

  • Dinner
  • $10 Gas Card or Bus Pass
  • One Hour of Childcare with licensed childcare providers
  • Facilitated Conversations on topics chosen by the group

Group discussions are led by licensed mental health professionals or guest experts.

Past topics include:

  • Rediscovering Family Connections
  • Trauma Healing
  • Advocating for Education Services
  • Understanding Healthcare Insurance
  • Smart Money and Budgeting
  • Goal Setting and Vision Boards

Schedule:

  • 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm | Dinner, Building Connections, and Independent Time
  • 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm | Active Childcare (Ages Birth–12)
  • 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm | Guided Group Discussion on a Mental Wellness Topic

Our Partnership

Touchstone Foundation’s mission is to elevate the mental well-being of youth and children in Lancaster County. Assessing the needs of parents, new parents especially, and creating resources that allow them to listen, learn and grow as caregivers.

Touchstone Foundation seeks a partnership with CAP to establish this program as a whole family approach.

With a Two-Generation program, we believe that people of all ages and life stages have the potential to grow, learn, and change. It ensures that the whole family can build a strong future for themselves at the same time, through a program that includes both parents and their children and values and supports the goals of parent and child equally. In this way, the whole family can reach educational and career goals, build stronger social connections, and strengthen the wellbeing of their family for the current generations and generations to come! 

About CAP Lancaster

Community Action Partnership (CAP) is Lancaster County’s largest anti-poverty organization and boasts a service profile that interrupts generational poverty with programs that assist families at every age and place in life.

Knowing that poverty is complex and its contributing factors vary, CAP is committed to creating innovative, person-centered initiatives, including social enterprise businesses, to augment our many long-standing and successful anti-poverty programs that advance the social and economic mobility of families. CAP is person-centered, outcomes-based, data-driven, and focused on greater sector impact and systems change.

Want to get involved?

Contact our programs manager, Shanece Bowman, to learn more about our programs.

Email her at sbowman@touchstonefoun.org or call 717-397-8722

History of Supporting Parents

The Pregnancy and Postpartum Mental Health of Lancaster County (PPMHLC) Fund was converted to our Maternal Mental Wellness Program! The fund was a grassroots effort by parents and mental health providers, including to help train medical providers to diagnose and refer patients with perinatal and postpartum depression/anxiety disorders.

In 2015, we began a postpartum mental health support group with Mental Health America of Lancaster County. The group supports new mothers/parents with peer connections and help accessing local resources. Our staff and Board members, including a licensed psychologist, facilitated the groups.

This fund was created in 2018 by the partnership of Touchstone Foundation, Keystone State Doula Services (KSDS), and Move Forward Counseling. More recently, we have partnered with Patients R Waiting, to support the Diversifying Doulas program. 

The COVID-19 pandemic paused our in-person meetings and groups continued to meet online and via social media. We attempted to restart the group in Spring 2022 but soon recognized a limiting factor in participation was the lack of childcare and a meal for parents/caregivers.