PARENT RESILIENCE PROGRAM
Parent Resilience Program (PERC)
The Parent Resilience Program is a voluntary program providing culturally-matched peer mental health support to US-born Black, Latinx and Spanish-Speaking, and Indigenous (AI, AN, NH, PI) families in select counties. Our model is informed by the needs of our individual participants to provide the unique, tailored support that parents in the perinatal period need to foster, restore, and improve their emotional wellness!
What we do
Each of our Peer Support Specialists (aka Parent Besties) are members of their own communities and are able to support their participants with the shared language and expertise of a peer who has been there. They are well-versed in creating helpful and realistic self-care strategies and seek to see the power IN you not empower you.
We offer a hybrid model of in-person, phone, text, and video meeting weekly or bi-weekly for as many weeks or months as the participant needs.
Our services last between 6-12 months and graduate parents who are ready with the tools and resources needed to navigate the challenges of parenthood.
For example this can look like:
- Helping a parent to carve out a realistic mindfulness routine
- Bolstering a parents’ self-advocacy around needed medication adjustments with their provider
- Cheerleading for a parent who is struggling with getting out of the house by going on a neighborhood walk with them
- Resource gathering for social meet-ups for new parent who is struggling with social isolation
- And more!
Who we work with
Culturally-matched peer support is a protective measure for families impacted by system barriers to accessing care, racism and colonial harms and/or currently experiencing perinatal emotional wellness concerns related to birthing.
This includes loss, infertility, pregnancy, and a variety of parenting experiences up to two years postpartum, those who are having a first or any number of pregnancies, as well as people who do not identify as parents, but have experienced mental health challenges related to reproduction/childbearing.
Some examples of perinatal mental health challenges our participants experience include anxiety, sadness or grief around unexpected parenting/birth outcomes, depression, sleeplessness, scary or intrusive thoughts.
In King County PERC provides Culturally-Matched support for:
- US-Born Black families
- Latinx and Spanish-Speaking families
- Indigenous (American Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander) families
In Skagit County PERC provides support for:
- Culturally-matched option for Latinx and Spanish-speaking families
- Peer support open based on availability prioritizing medicaid eligible families
Who PERC does not serve
- Parents/participants outside of King or Skagit Counties
- Parents with Substance Use Disorders who are not currently engaged in recovery services
- Parents who are currently, or have recently experienced, a mental health crisis resulting in hospitalization and are not actively engaged in mental health services
- Parents whose primary mental health concern is not related to childbearing/conception/loss
Does this program sound like the right fit for you? Call 1-888-404-7763
To access any of our programs please submit a request for services below. Providers can refer via the same link
1-888-404-7763
* se habla español
warmline@perinatalsupport.org
“I hope all your future participants feel the support you have given me”
-PERC Participant
Meet our team
Elizabeth Moore Simpson, PERC Program Manager
Elizabeth Moore Simpson (she/her), LICSW, PERC Program Manager
Is a parent of two and also identifies as a bereaved parent. Prior to joining PS-WA she had over ten years of experience working with growing families. With an infant-early childhood mental health (IECMH) and perinatal health focus, she has held roles as a full-spectrum doula, restorative justice circle keeper, child and family therapist, PMH therapist and community organizer.
Elizabeth practices as a perinatal therapist, abortion doula and is the program manager for PS-WA’s Parent Resilience Program. She enjoys bringing tarot and body-based awareness to her personal and professional practice. She is passionate about supporting families impacted by the child welfare system to sustain, develop and strengthen secure attachments with family and community and working upstream to challenge mandated reporting laws causing harm and distrust between families and providers.
Elizabeth enjoys improvising crafts with her kids and manifesting cozy fall days. She aspires to bring levity, integrity and realness to her work with colleagues and families and can often be found scouring thrift stores for costumes and craft supplies.
Elizabeth.MooreSimpson (at) perinatalsupport (dot) org
Stephanie Valerdi, PERC Program Support Coordinator & Latinx Peer Support
Stephanie Valerdi (she/her/they/them), PERC Program Support Coordinator and Latinx Peer Support
Stephanie Valerdi identifies as a queer, Latinx, chronically ill, single parent of a child with special needs. Stephanie Valerdi has over 10 years of experience supporting families and parents in various roles with an emphasis on supporting families through a trauma-informed lens that acknowledges the oppressive systems in which we currently live.
Stephanie, along with lived experience, has received training in the mental health field and has provided compassionate support to parents addressing challenges in the birth-5 range. Stephanie has provided strengths-based, culturally matched support within the Latinx community and has worked to increase the quality and access to Spanish mental health and community services. Stephanie is DEIA co-chair at Perinatal Support Washington and has been an advocate for increasing equity, accessibility, and anti-racist practices in their work.
Stephanie has personal experience navigating the mental health systems as an immigrant and as a survivor of gender-based violence and is passionate about using their experience and skills to connect with other families. Stephanie hopes to provide a safe space to hold families/birthing people by honoring their experiences, and allowing them to connect and heal in ways that feel true to them.
Stephanie has supported families in our Parent Resilience Program as a peer to the Latinx/Spanish speaking community and now supports the program as Support Coordinator.
stephanie.valerdi (at) perinatalsupport (dot) org
La Tonia Bussell-Packard, Peer Support Specialist
La Tonia Bussell-Packard (they/she), Parent Resilience Specialist, Traditional Midwife
La Tonia is a queer Black femme who supports pregnant and parenting families as a Parent Resilience Specialist in King County. They serve as an encouraging resource and witness for parents navigating the perinatal mental health landscape by using their firsthand experience as a parent who has lived with anxiety and depression. La Tonia knows firsthand the barriers that exist for Black and queer folx seeking support for their mental health. La Tonia has experienced personal and professional loss, which allows them to offer supportive tools and skills that are based on lived experience and shared community ways of ‘knowing’ and processing grief and loss.
La Tonia has spent the last 7+ years advocating for families, attending births, and providing compassionate care as a birth doula and student midwife. They graduated from midwifery school in June 2021 and now practice and attend births as a traditional midwife. In all their work, La Tonia centers Black, Indigenous, and QTPOC families in their role as a midwife, doula, and peer. They use the framework and lens of reproductive justice, the intersections of race, class, gender/sexuality, and ability, and radical rest politics when supporting families in their community.
LeChante' Raiwalui, Peer Support Specialist/ Indigenous Emotional Support 'Bestie'
LeChante' Raiwalui (she/her), Parent Resilience Specialist/Indigenous Emotional Support 'Bestie'
LeChante’ is a mom of two beautiful soulmates. Her mental health journey is delicately woven into her birth and postpartum stories, and growth through parenting. The foundation of LeChante’s career as a Birth Navigator began with developing her Birth Doula skills. She quickly found herself strengthening her natural gift for introspection and heart-searching while facilitating supportive pregnancy care and parent support groups. While cultural affirmation and reclamation from a Pacific Islander and African American cultural lens is at the heart of LeChante’s work, she also leans on techniques for mindfulness and mental health advocacy, allowing for caregivers of any stage the space to explore and embrace deeper self-awareness in connection to their inner and outer worlds.
As a Parent Resilience Specialist/Indigenous Emotional Support ‘Bestie’, LeChante’s intention is to embody the way of her ancestors' ancient practice called ‘WayFinding’. To act as a ‘Hoturoa’ in Maori meaning head of the canoe, a modern mentor for families who are seeking support while navigating the waters of life. She studies her personal, cultural, spiritual, and familial experiences just as her ancestors studied the stars to guide her canoe through pivotal seasons of life. Gratitude fills her heart knowing the strength and trust it takes for families to allow her into their lives to embrace sacred and necessary connections of the Matavuvale (family).
lechante.raiwalui (at) perinatalsupport (dot) org
Amy Menjivar, Peer Support Specialist
Amy Menjivar (she/her), Peer Support Specialist
Amy is a Queer, Latinx, mother of two children and PMAD’s survivor and Bilingual Spanish speaker. She comes from immigrant Salvadorian parents with unique experiences and perspectives. She has a passion to provide strong contributions to our society, with awareness of the use of stigmatizing language around mental illness. She has a background in Early Childhood Education and has worked with children for the past 9 years. She has supported King County Families and children of all ethnicities with special needs. She has worked mostly with Latino families as their family support specialist.
Amy is passionate about helping the community, engaging families and building community. After Amy experienced severe anxiety and postpartum depression, she has been determined to help parents who could be going through what she went through. She is committed to help immigrants in the community and teach families that there is someone here to listen to them and also to receive help.
Addelle Diedesch, Skagit PERC Program Manager
T. Addelle Diedesch (she/her), MA, LMHC, PMH-C
Addelle is a cis gender, white, neuro-divergant, queer mother of three children and PMAD’s survivor. After she experienced severe PMADs, which “fell through the cracks' and went undiagnosed in her community, she became determined to improve PMAD screening, treatment and reduce stigma in her community. For the entirety of her career Addelle has had a focus on social justice, working with underserved and marginalized families. She has worked with pregnant and parenting individuals, adolescents and families in recovery, and worked within the Stillaguamish tribal community as a chemical dependency counselor in medication assisted treatment. She is committed to serving underrepresented low-income families and making change at a systems level.
Addelle is a child mental health specialist and certified perinatal mental health specialist. She currently provides mental health counseling, provides community mental health consultation and is a community advocate for perinatal mental health.
Crystal Kobol, Skagit Peer Support Specialist
Crystal Kobol (she/her), Parent Resilience Specialist
Crystal has supported youth within the educational system and housing displaced families in Skagit County for the last 8 years. Equitable access to educational opportunities and behavioral health have been a cornerstone of Crystal’s 15 years of social service work.
Crystal experienced unexpected pregnancy complications leading to the premature birth of her child. Art journaling, mindfulness coaching and healing in community helped Crystal endure the highs and lows of both infertility and NICU parenting. Crystal’s lived experience led her to become passionate about advocating for systemic practices that promote perinatal wellness within the whole community.
Parent Resources and Handouts
County Resources & Referrals
Due to COVID-19 many of of the support groups below are either not meeting, or are meeting virtually. Please visit our Virtual Support Groups Handout below for all the details.
