Child welfare campaign wants to reduce stigma in asking for help

“There is a fear of being judged. There’s a stigma that parents and caregivers experience that they feel like they shouldn’t ask for help,” said Melissa Hackett, coordinator of the Maine Child Welfare Action Network. (Photo by Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty Image)

The saying may go that it takes a village to raise a child, but as coordinator of the Maine Child Welfare Action Network, Melissa Hackett said many parents feel isolated in that responsibility.

“There’s this promise and this concept that it takes a village, but where is the village?” Hackett asked.

That’s why the group, which was established in 2018, started a public awareness campaign with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services that Hackett said she hopes will get other people thinking about how they can show up for the parents in their lives.

The campaign called Be There for ME is designed to be a tool for any parent or caregiver who needs resources for housing or behavioral health services. It doesn’t single out particular groups, Hackett explained, because “parenting is a universally hard job” and the campaign wants to normalize and destigmatize asking for help.

Conversations about child welfare in Maine have largely centered on tragedy and system failures in recent months as lawmakers and even caseworkers have called for reforms. The state needs an intervention system to protect children in danger, Hackett said, but there is also value in providing adequate, proactive investments in families.

“We also are really missing the boat if we don’t have a bigger conversation about the many other, sooner ways that we could help families not need to have that intervention, keep their families intact and have kids be safe,” she said.

Origin of Be There for ME

When Hackett’s team was doing community outreach for the state’s Child Safety and Family Wellbeing plan in 2023, a common theme they heard from parents and caregivers was fear of asking for help when taking care of children.

“There is a fear of being judged. There’s a stigma that parents and caregivers experience that they feel like they shouldn’t ask for help,” Hackett said, adding that there is also sometimes a concern that asking for help can lead to child protective services getting involved.

Hackett said the network wanted to do something to address that hesitation and were given $1 million in Gov. Janet Mills’ 2023 budget change package to develop the campaign and strengthen the work of community-based organizations supporting Maine families.

Part of those funds were used to build the Be There for ME website, which is organized into three main parts: A section for people who know they need support but aren’t sure where to start, another for those who know what they need and a third section for people looking to support other parents in their life.

The “I’m Not Sure Where to Start” section includes links to several organizations that can help a family identify their needs. The “I Know What I Need” section allows a caregiver to choose from 12 different areas of potential need including food, transportation, and even emotional support for parents and children.

Not only does Hackett hope parents feel like the message resonates and allows them to feel seen, but she hopes others in Maine ask themselves how they can show up for the parents in their lives.

That’s why the third section of the site includes simple steps like calling to ask someone how they are doing or sharing stories of a time when you sought help to work on reducing stigma.

“It’s not clear to everyone that we all share a role and responsibility in supporting raising the next generation,” Hackett said. “So we really also wanted this message to go to everyone to articulate the ways they can step up and really step forward to be there for parents and caregivers.”

Not just another directory

Parents were clear that they didn’t want another resource directory, Hackett said, which is why most pages include information on 211 to remind people of that existing resource.

She said there was significant feedback from parents that it can be overwhelming to navigate resources, and that having someone to talk to on the phone can be helpful. That’s why Hackett said the team prioritized linking to organizations and resources that provide peer support or direct phone numbers.

The campaign materials are translated into a dozen different languages to mitigate language barrier. Hackett also said community partners like healthcare providers, educators and other organizations that work with families are encouraged to adapt the materials to serve populations without reliable internet access.

Julian Richter, an attorney and president of the Maine Parental Rights Attorneys Association , said the site provides resources he can refer his clients to in a simplified, helpful format. He said he sees how the website could be valuable for professionals supporting families or for caregivers who can independently navigate these resources.

However, he added that families could still face obstacles like long wait times to actually access services.

While the campaign could provide some long term benefits, Richter said the impact may be greater if there were efforts to reform the mandated reporting system, which requires certain professionals to report information on the suspected abuse or neglect of a child. He spoke of a paradigm shift that is happening nationally to support parents, rather than being quick to report them.

“Those resources still need to be able to approach families with a different attitude of ‘How we support them?’ rather than, ‘How do we report them?’” Richter said.

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