Designing online peer support for parents of adolescents at risk of mental health challenges

While online parenting interventions have been shown to improve youth mental health, parents find it challenging to engage with and implement strategies from self-directed interventions. Our study purposefully designed a parent peer-support community for parents seeking support. Our two-phased qualitative study included parent interviews and design workshops. Our findings show that while parents need others’ lived experiences to learn about parenting, perceived judgment and self-doubt can stop them from actively contributing to the peer support group. To address this design challenge, we operationalised parents’ needs and challenges gained in the interviews and workshops into design implications. We demonstrate a parent-centered design approach where we formulate design implications that integrate parents’ needs and expectations with multidisciplinary theoretical and empirical evidence to deepen and concretise the design for an online parent peer-support community that cultivates empathy, encourages confidence and self-efficacy, and motivates change and growth.