SAN ANTONIO – A program that has seen success internationally has been operating in Bexar County for six years now, and is growing year over year.
The Positive Parenting Program, also called Triple P, helps families with many different types of parenting resources to prevent child welfare issues.
“The way you raise a child not only impacts them in the moment, but it impacts their future. And we know that people who experience violence in childhood are more likely to be victimized in the future or become perpetrators,” said Metro Health Public Health Administrator Erica Haller-Stevenson.
Haller-Stevenson said Triple P classes are for parents in many different situations.
She said some families that take the class just want some extra help with coping skills.
“Trying to figure out how to communicate with your kid in different stages of life, how to offer them choices that are acceptable, how to teach them to express their emotions, and work together,” Haller-Stevenson said.
She wants parents to know that everyone has trouble at some point in parenting.
“It might just be something verbal even, and maybe you didn’t think you would talk that way to your kid. Everybody gets stressed parenting and some people have a harder experience with that than others. All these factors, economic, maybe you lost your job, or maybe somebody in the family is really sick. All these things provide a lot of stress and can change the way you react when you’re parenting,” she said.
Then there are other parents who have already fallen into abusive patterns, often the same ones they experienced as kids.
“People who maybe have an incredibly serious case of child abuse pending in the courts, but the goal is to help that parent, right? They’re in the class to change their direction,” Haller-Stevenson said.
Parents with different needs are in different classes. The classes are labeled levels 2 through 5.
“The ones with the lower numbers are more preventive introductory. The ones with higher numbers are for people who are involved in some way in child abuse and they’re more restorative,” Haller-Stevenson said.
The program is picking up speed. It launched in 2019 with one instructor and now there are three instructors, because the client numbers are spiking.
From 2023 to 2024, a total of 646 clients completed classes. From 2024 to 2025, a total of 994 clients completed classes
“They also have some kind of mini counseling sessions with the parents and ask about what their needs are. We are able to offer some really small monetary incentives for people to complete the classes,” Haller-Stevenson said.
Then the program leaders pair families with organizations like the food bank, diaper bank, or mental health help — anything they need to lessen stress and make parenting easier.
“You can raise a good human with really positive methods, and then that breaks the generational cycle of violence,” Haller-Stevenson said.
Triple P is free to anyone in Bexar County. Information is available on the program website.
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