Helpline & Interventions
Helpline & Interventions for Families Grappling with Extremism
The parents who founded Parents for Peace had no one to turn to for help as they watched their children slip into extremism. Determined to make sure no other family felt alone or powerless to intervene effectively, Parents for Peace created a confidential and free helpline to assist families with deradicalization interventions.
Do you need help? Call our tollfree helpline today at 1-884-497-3223.
First launched in 2017, the helpline has assisted hundreds of families from across the country and around the world and addressed a wide range of extremist ideologies. Drawing on lessons learned from suicide hotlines and other mental health helplines, the helpline has a formal protocol for evaluating cases, devising specific interventions, monitoring progress, and coaching families to healthy outcomes. Cases are ultimately resolved based on criteria in P4P’s helpline manual, ideally when it appears the at-risk individual is on a healthy path to recovery.
Complex factors that lead individuals into radicalization, most stemming from an underlying anxiety, trauma, or other mental health issue. Extremism functions as a drug of choice, a short-cut to numbing pain. Our intervention effort involves de-escalating from the ‘shortcut’ path back to a place where the core issues driving the initial turn to extremism can be addressed. When properly understood, the same vulnerabilities that were exploited by extremist groomers can instead become openings for healthy engagement. Our strategic approach involves guiding families and other potential mentors to find these openings and begin to redirect the individual, replacing the unhealthy influence of the traffickers/groomers.
Complex factors that lead individuals into radicalization, most stemming from an underlying anxiety, trauma, or other mental health issue. Extremism functions as a drug of choice, a short-cut to numbing pain. Our intervention effort involves de-escalating from the ‘shortcut’ path back to a place where the core issues driving the initial turn to extremism can be addressed. When properly understood, the same vulnerabilities that were exploited by extremist groomers can instead become openings for healthy engagement. Our strategic approach involves guiding families and other potential mentors to find these openings and begin to redirect the individual, replacing the unhealthy influence of the traffickers/groomers.
Our team brings an array of professional and personal experiences to guide interventions. We are clinicians with international experience, as well as survivors of extremism – including former extremists who understand the radicalization and deradicalization process intimately. Click here to read about our Intervention Specialists.
Helpline & Interventions for Families Grappling with Extremism
The parents who founded Parents for Peace had no one to turn to for help as they watched their children slip into extremism. Determined to make sure no other family felt alone or powerless to intervene effectively, Parents for Peace created a confidential and free helpline to assist families with deradicalization interventions.
Do you need help? Call our toll-free helpline today at 1-884-497-3223.
Helpline Essentials:
First launched in 2017, the helpline has assisted hundreds of families from across the country and around the world and addressed a wide range of extremist ideologies. Drawing on lessons learned from suicide hotlines and other mental health helplines, the helpline has a formal protocol for evaluating cases, devising specific interventions, monitoring progress, and coaching families to healthy outcomes. Cases are ultimately resolved based on criteria in P4P’s helpline manual, ideally when it appears the at-risk individual is on a healthy path to recovery.
Intervention Approach:
What Happens When I Call:
A Parents for Peace intake team will ask you questions about the case you are calling about. The in-take process evaluates the situation and makes an initial assessment of how deeply the at-risk individual appears to have been radicalized. In most cases, Parents for Peace then arranges a follow-up discussion to help identify key factors that make the at-risk individual vulnerable to extremist ‘grooming’ as well as other dynamics contributing to vulnerability. We conduct regular sessions to help address underlying identity crises in healthy ways and measure progress towards de-radicalization. Regular sessions end when the person-at-risk shows signs of healthy recovery.