“It’s a lifeline”: Generating a sense of social connectedness through befriending parents of disabled children or children with additional need

Blake, Lucy; Bray, Lucy; Carter, Bernie

Abstract

Objectives
This study explored the influence of a parent-to-parent peer support scheme on the wellbeing of parents of disabled children or children with additional need who joined a befriending scheme.

Methods
A longitudinal concurrent mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) research design collected data (telephone interviews, Footsteps Tool, Resilience Scale-14) with 33 befriendees (1:1 or group support) and 33 befrienders at time-point 1 (TP1). TP2 data were collected from 20 befriendees and 16 befrienders 6–9 months after recruitment.

Results
There was some improvement on average scores between TP1 and TP2 on both tools. The strongest evidence of change - ‘a sense of positivity and hope’ and ‘connection, belonging and sharing’ - was in the parents' reports of how the scheme helped them to build secure and valued social connections within a community of other parents who understood their lives.

Conclusion
Both the befriendees and befrienders reported the sense of hope and a feeling of belonging as key benefits that resulted from the social connections they gained from the scheme.

Practice implications
Social connectedness is likely to be a more useful concept than resilience in examining change.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 10, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jul 11, 2019
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Oct 3, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 5, 2021
• Journal: Patient Education and Counseling
• Print ISSN: 0738-3991
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 102
• Issue: 12
• Pages: 2279-2285
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2019.07.012
• Keywords: General Medicine
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7522227
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: “It’s a lifeline”: Generating a sense of social connectedness through befriending parents of disabled children or children with additional need; Journal Title: Patient Education and Counseling; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2019.07.012; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.