Forward in Faith | Fall 2024
Parent Connect is a confidential weekly support group for parents navigating the challenge of having teenage or adult children engaged in self-destructive behaviors, especially those related to drug and alcohol addiction.
Addiction is a disease that impacts the entire family, and parents often feel overwhelmed and consumed by fear and chaos as they try to help their struggling child and family. Although one in three families experience addiction, parents often express feeling isolated, exhausted, and alone.
Pastor Bob Carter leads Parent Connect
In 2005, Pastor Bob Carter and his wife, Debbie, launched Parent Connect to provide struggling parents with an accepting, understanding, and supportive community. Over the past two decades, the support group has been a haven for hundreds of parents from inside and outside the church.
“Parent Connect offered us a place where we could openly hurt and be honest about our child’s addiction and mental illness without being blamed for it,” said one parent. “This community has also taught us how to live and even thrive in the uncertainty that comes with loving someone who is sick.”
Another said, “The fear and shame we felt over our child’s addiction was paralyzing. We isolated so the outside world could not see what was really going on. Finding Parent Connect was a life saver. It gave us a way out of the isolation by being with other parents who knew what we were experiencing and through this supportive community we were able to find help for ourselves.”
Bob Carter said, “Lots of people come into the group feeling alone and thinking their story is unique. It’s very life-giving when they realize that there are people who really do understand and that there is a group that will support, walk alongside, and pray with them. That’s what Parent Connect is all about.”
