Who attends and appreciates Parent Cafés: A peer‐learning program centered around family protective factors

Abstract Objective To understand how different groups of parents rate their first Parent Café experience. Background Parent Cafés use self‐reflection and peer‐to‐peer learning to help participants integrate the Strengthening Families Protective Factors. Given the lack of empirical research on the effectiveness of peer support for parents, we sought to use available quantitative data to lay the groundwork for further evaluation of Parent Cafés by exploring participant ratings' after their first Café experience. Methods All Parent Café participants are asked to complete an anonymous survey that includes fixed‐choice questions about demographics and their Café experience. This study is a secondary analysis of English responses collected between March 2020 and December 2021 ( n = 8,094). Results Multivariate linear regression indicated first‐time attendees ( n = 3,417) endorse Cafés significantly more if they are younger than 31 years old. At only a trend‐level, African American or Latino/a parents rate Cafés more highly than White parents. Conclusion First time Café attendees who are young and of racial/ethnic minority groups rate Cafés higher than those who are older or White. Implications This is the first large‐scale analysis of Parent Cafés and offers preliminary evidence of endorsement among young African American and Latino/a caregiver populations.