Mission & History
Child Parent Institute, formerly California Parenting Institute, is a parent education and children’s mental health agency, serving families throughout Sonoma County since 1978. Our continuum of care includes child therapy, family resource assistance, parent education, facilitated supervised visitation and a non-public school (New Directions) providing adolescent special education/mental health services. We advocate for policies that support families and protect children.
Child Parent Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization; our tax ID number is 94-2541640.
Our Mission
Our mission is to end child abuse and strengthen the health of children, parents, and families.
Our Agency Principles
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) impact lifelong health outcomes. We will assess the needs of each individual and family and offer them a coordinated menu of prevention, education, intervention, and advocacy services.
We will use the “Strengthening Families” approach in providing services and will promote these five protective factors, which are proven effective in the prevention of child abuse and neglect:
- Parental resilience
- Social connections
- Knowledge of parenting and child development
- Concrete support in times of need
- Children’s social and emotional development
By adopting a trauma-informed system of care, we recognize that all children and families affected by trauma deserve access to the best possible care provided by a trained, compassionate, and supported workforce.
We embrace and respect all families as our clients and believe that interventions should empower both parents and children. We respect that seeking support or information is how change and growth will occur and we view this as a family strength, not a deficit.
We have a strength-based and prevention-focused philosophy. We use proven, evidence or research-based methods as well as innovative practices to help and heal children, educate and support parents, and enhance parental competency.
We offer resources, make referrals, and collaborate with other health and social service agencies to deliver services efficiently.
Evidence Based Strategies
CPI is committed to the use of evidence-based strategies including the Triple P Positive Parenting Program, a form of behavior intervention based on social learning principles that has the strongest empirical support of any intervention with families and children. Triple P core strategies are designed for parents of children from birth to age 12 and are now applied in more than 20 countries. Another evidence-based program is the American Psychological Association's Adults and Children Together (ACT) violence prevention parenting classes.
