Last April, Baptist Memorial Health Care was proud to announce the opening of one of the nation’s first Universal Parenting Places at Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women. A judgement-free zone where parents can receive professional counseling, information, and emotional support for family-related issues and concerns, the Universal Parenting Place (UPP) has been a valuable resource for the Memphis community over the last year.
“Our main service is offering counseling to parents, couples, and multi-generational families,” said Paige Marcantel, director of Baptist Women’s UPP. “We focus on clinical support services that are offered to parents and families and provide help for individual family situations. Parents come to see us for a variety of parenting challenges or even if they just have questions about proper child development and things like that. We want to help parents find a way to parent that works best for their family.”
The Universal Parenting Place offers a variety of activities for parents and children, like the Beautiful Bundles program. This new mom and infant support group meets weekly and on-site nurses provide educational information about sleep, feeding, and other topics that impact new mothers.
“It’s also a great way for moms to meet new people and make new friends,” said Marcantel.
In February, the Hospital Charitable Services Association through Jackson Health Care honored the Baptist Women’s UPP with the Program of Promise Award, which highlights collaboration between health care corporations and community partners. With so much to offer, Baptist wants to be sure that the people in the community are aware of the resources for parents provided at UPP.
“Sometimes there is a misconception that we only see children for counseling,” said Marcantel. “We actually see parents here. We want parents to feel like they can come and see us and work on their challenges. We provide targeted referrals if they are in need of a service we don’t provide or need to connect with a doctor. We also make sure to follow up to ensure that the program gave them what they needed. So many people struggle with how insurance works and how to figure out how to access those things, so we make sure they don’t fall through the cracks.”
The Universal Parenting Place will be working with Playback Memphis, an improv group and community partner, to hold a special event for the community. Hosted by Baptist CEO Jason Little, Playback will touch on different topics that the center might counsel parents about. UPP aims to use a variety of methods to provide support for parents and facilitate better communication, including therapeutic tools like Playback.
Join us Monday, May 9th at 5:30 pm in the lobby of Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women to learn more about the Universal Parenting Place and Playback Memphis. Free dessert will be provided.