SPACE Parent Group
Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions
Six evenings that give you something to do at home, when anxiety has started running the house.
SPACE stands for Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions. It is a treatment for childhood anxiety and OCD in which the parents are the ones who come. Your child does not attend, does not have to want this, and does not have to be ready. You learn how to respond differently at home, and the change starts there.
- When
- Wednesdays at 7:00 PM
- Runs
- 6 sessions, October 14 to November 25, 2026
- For parents of
- Children 7 to 14
- Cost
- $80 a session
To join this cycle, let us know by Friday, October 9, 2026.
Some of what parents describe.
- The morning takes an hour longer than it should, and everyone knows why.
- You have answered the same question so many times you have stopped hearing it.
- You are doing everything you can think of, and it seems to be helping less each month.
What SPACE is
SPACE is a parent-based treatment for childhood anxiety and OCD. Instead of the child attending therapy, the parents do. Over six sessions you learn a specific set of skills: how to respond to your child's anxiety in a way that communicates both support and confidence, and how to step back from the accommodations that have grown up around the fear.
SPACE was developed by Dr. Eli Lebowitz and colleagues at the Yale Child Study Center. A randomized trial published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2020 compared it with individual cognitive-behavioral therapy for children ages 7 to 14, and found the parent-based treatment worked as well as CBT. The study is here, and spacetreatment.net is the program's own site if you want to read further.
One thing to know about the length. The research protocol runs 10 to 12 sessions of parent work. This group runs six, which is enough to learn the method and start using it. Parents who want to keep going can continue individually or join the next cycle.
The part that matters most to many parents: your child does not have to agree to any of this. Children who refuse therapy, who insist nothing is wrong, or who are simply too young to engage with it, are exactly the situation SPACE was built for.
The accommodation cycle
Accommodation is what families do to help a child get through anxiety. Answering the reassurance question one more time. Sleeping in the doorway. Ordering for them at the restaurant. Driving the long way to avoid the dog. Calling the school so they do not have to present.
Every one of these comes from love, and every one of them works in the moment. The child calms down. The evening survives. Nobody does this out of weakness; parents do it because it is the thing that helps right now, and because watching your child in distress is genuinely hard to sit with.
The difficulty is what it teaches over time. Each accommodation quietly confirms two things to an anxious child: the danger was real, and you could not have handled it on your own. So the fear holds, the accommodations grow, and the family reorganizes itself a little further around the anxiety each month.
SPACE works on this directly, and gradually. You choose one accommodation to change. You tell your child in advance, kindly and clearly, what you are going to do differently. And you pair the change with more support, not less, so what your child hears is not you are on your own but I know this is hard, and I know you can do it. That combination is the whole method.
Who it's for
This group is for parents and caregivers of children roughly 7 to 14 years old. Some flexibility for 15-year-olds. Worth asking if your child is close to the range.
What it helps with
- Separation anxiety
- Social anxiety
- Generalized anxiety
- Specific phobias
- School refusal
- Selective mutism
- OCD
- Reassurance-seeking that has become constant
- Early food or eating restrictions with an anxiety or OCD shape
It tends to fit when
- Anxiety has started to set the household schedule.
- You find yourself reassuring, checking, or answering the same question many times a day.
- Your family has quietly rearranged itself around what your child will and will not do.
- Your child does not want to go to therapy, or has been and is still anxious.
- You would rather learn something you can use at home than send your child somewhere to be fixed.
- You want to help without your child feeling that something is wrong with them.
When a group is not the right first step
A parent group is not the right starting place for every family. It is not the right fit if:
- Your child has a history of suicidal thoughts or behavior.
- Your child has self-harmed at a level that needed hospital care.
- Your child is experiencing psychosis.
- Your child's aggression is severe.
None of this means there is nothing for your family here. It means a group is the wrong first step, and individual therapy is the better one. Our intake team can talk it through with you and point you to the right starting place.
Dates
6 sessions, Wednesdays at 7:00 PM Eastern, online. Two Wednesdays are off.
- Session 1Wednesday, October 14
- Session 2Wednesday, October 21
- —Wednesday, October 28, no group
- Session 3Wednesday, November 4
- Session 4Wednesday, November 11
- Session 5Wednesday, November 18
- Session 6Wednesday, November 25
Cost
$80
per session
$465
for all 6 sessions, paid upfront. $15 less than paying session by session.
The group is self-pay and is not billed through insurance.
The group runs with a minimum of three families and enrollment is capped so there is room for everyone to talk.
Your facilitator
Juana Zegarra, MSW, LCSW
Juana is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than twenty years of clinical experience, working with teens, adults, and families. She is certified in EMDR and draws on IFS, DBT, and CBT in her work, and she sees clients in both English and Spanish.
She is the person who will be with you for all six evenings. If you want to know who you would be sitting with before you decide anything, that is a reasonable thing to want.
Read Juana's full bioFrequently asked questions
Does my child come to the group?
No. Parents and caregivers attend; the child does not. That is the design. The work happens in how you respond at home, so you are the one who needs the tools. Many parents find this a relief, particularly if their child has refused therapy or does not want to be treated as the problem.
Do both parents need to attend?
One is enough, and two is often better. When caregivers in a household respond in the same way, the change tends to hold more easily. If a co-parent cannot make Wednesday evenings, come anyway and we will talk about how to bring them along.
Is this an evidence-based treatment?
SPACE was developed by Dr. Eli Lebowitz and colleagues at the Yale Child Study Center. The 2020 randomized trial in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry compared SPACE with individual CBT for children ages 7 to 14 and found it worked as well. That trial used a 12-session protocol; this group runs six, which covers the method and gets you using it. Parents who want to continue can do so individually or join the next cycle.
My child is already in therapy. Can we still do this?
Often yes. SPACE works on the family's response to anxiety, which sits alongside individual work rather than replacing it. It is worth telling your child's therapist you are considering it so everyone is pulling the same direction. If you are not sure whether the timing is right, our intake team can help you think it through.
Will I have to make my child do things that upset them?
No. SPACE changes what you do, not what your child is made to do. You are never asked to force, push, or threaten. You pick one accommodation, you tell your child ahead of time what you are changing, and you increase the support you offer at the same time. Distress can come up, and the group is where you get help handling it.
Will I have to talk about my family in front of other people?
You share what you want to share. The group is small on purpose and much of each session is teaching and practice rather than disclosure. Most parents find that hearing other families describe the same evening they just had is one of the more useful parts.
What happens after the six sessions?
You keep the method. Parents who want more support can continue individually with a clinician, or join the next cycle of the group when it runs. There is no obligation to do either, and plenty of families are done at six.
Where does it meet, and who can join?
Fully virtual, Wednesdays at 7:00 PM Eastern. It is open to parents and caregivers of children in Maryland and Delaware. You will get the link before the first session.
If you want to join
Call or email our intake team and mention the SPACE Parent Group. They will ask a few questions about your child to make sure a parent group is the right starting place, and answer anything this page did not. To be part of this cycle, let them know by Friday, October 9, 2026.
Our main line is 301-304-7108, option 1. If email is easier, write to info@traumaspecialistsofmd.com.
If this is not the right thing for your family, or not the right time, that is a fine answer. You are welcome to reach out about something else whenever it would help, and the therapy for children and teens page covers the other ways we work with families.
Related
Anxiety Treatment
How anxiety works, what keeps it going, and the approaches we use with children and adults.
Therapy for Children & Teens
Individual work with younger clients, for families where the child is ready to be in the room.
All Groups
Other groups running at the practice, and what each one is for.