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Elevating parent voice to spark change in community

Editor’s Note: In this week’s blog post, NCFL Director of Family Leadership, Whitney Fields, and Senior Content Specialist, Brittany Chimento, join forces to discuss the importance of ensuring that parenting adults have access to the tools needed to speak out on behalf of issues that affect their families and communities.

As a child’s first teacher and primary advocate, parenting adults need and deserve opportunities to expand their leadership skills and network with other families, school-based professionals, and local leaders to create positive change in their schools and communities. However, many parenting adults feel that they haven’t been given this opportunity, don’t know how to seize it once they have the chance, or are disregarded when sharing their input. 

Our research-based, six-step family service learning framework aims to strengthen communities by fostering leadership and advocacy skills, and serves as the foundation for NCFL’s family leadership models. However, elevating parent voice to spark change in schools and communities isn’t just something we strive for within our family leadership programming—it’s an important part of our work overall. NCFL strives to create spaces that prioritize relationships, shared power, lived experiences and parent voice to overcome barriers and dismantle inequities within communities throughout our organization’s reach.

The goal of elevating parent voice may sound simple; however, the impact of this work is anything but. According to a recent report from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, “when parent leaders see opportunity gaps, they know the consequences for their children and take action, forming networks and joining forces with other groups. Using their own stories, backed by data and told in their authentic voices, they offer ideas that lead to more equitable policies and practices.” 

A key outcome of elevating parent voice that continues to fuel positive change within communities is the shift from personal capital to collective capital. In their article titled “Enhancing Parent Leadership Through Building Social and Intellectual Capital,” Bolívar and Chrispeels note that the development of intellectual and social capital also catalyzes the further shift from personal action to collective action. They go on to say that “…for social capital to translate into returns for the whole community, enhancing intellectual capital is essential. This intellectual capital is generated by the existence of meaningful knowledge exchange and combination that achieves a shared understanding of the group’s condition, its capabilities, and necessary steps for action.”

NCFL’s Activate! Local program offers the opportunity to build intellectual and social capital while joining other parenting adults in their community to take part in a cohort-based model. Throughout this 8-month program, parents receive support in furthering their own leadership development while engaging in our equity-driven curriculum. In addition, they can then use the knowledge gained to work alongside schools and community stakeholders to design and execute projects that seek to solve challenges that are self- identified within their school system or community.

A recent Activate! Local cohort was composed of Spanish speaking-participants and led by two Spanish-speaking co-facilitators, alumni of NCFL’s Activate! National programming, in Denver, Colorado. Our programming staff intentionally chose these alumni to lead our pilot co-facilitator model due to their  existing deep ties and commitment to their community. They recruited cohort participants from families already involved in their own non-profit and community work. This was a thriving cohort because of the extraordinary community buy-in, trusted partnerships, the approach of meeting families where they are, and listening to parent voice.

Cohort’s participants divided into four workgroups to work on an equity issue that participants advocated to address: diabetes prevention, bullying awareness and prevention, childhood sexual abuse prevention, and connecting students to a culturally representative after-school activity (Folklórico dance). Describing the impact of participating in the program, one parenting adult stated “Estoy agradecida y emocionada por seguir haciendo la diferencia en mi comunidad. ¡Gracias por inspirarme y por creer en mí! ¡Juntos podemos lograr grandes cosas! Agradezco toda la experiencia adquirida y el apoyo recibido por parte de todos los involucrados en este proyecto Activate! Colorado. Ya que logramos crear un proyecto de gran impacto para los niñas. Estoy segura de que continuaré aplicando lo aprendido en futuras iniciativas y contribuyendo de forma positiva al crecimiento y bienestar de nuestra comunidad.” Her sentiment translates to, “I am grateful and excited to continue making a difference in my community. Thank you for inspiring me and believing in me! Together, we can achieve great things! I am grateful for all the experience gained and the support received from everyone involved in this Activate! Colorado project. We managed to create a project with a significant impact on children. I am sure that I will continue to apply what I have learned in future initiatives and contribute positively to the growth and well-being of our community.”

We encourage readers to continue their learning of our Activate! Local work by exploring the following:

About the Authors

As the Director of Family Leadership, Whitney supports a team around NCFL’s family leadership work. Such work includes programs like Activate! Local and Activate! National, and other co-design and coalition-building work aimed at family-based leadership opportunities. Prior to joining NCFL, she worked at United Way of Central Indiana in a variety of 2Gen-type roles and most recently served as 2Gen Partnerships and Engagement Director. In that role, she led a wide array of learning-based opportunities relating to the 2Gen model, served as a support to their grantee pool of 34 community-based organizations, and started a pilot parent advisory council. Prior to United Way, she worked at a national Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI) engaging with community around health equity and quality of life-related work. Whitney’s passion for authentic community engagement stems from her time in AmeriCorps as a VISTA member and her community organizing background in food justice-based work, as well as asset-based community development models. Additionally, as an offspring of a long line of educators, she is passionate about the upward mobility equal educational access and attainment can provide. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Family and Consumer Sciences from the University of Kentucky and a Master of Public Affairs degree from Indiana University. 

While she’s been based in the Indianapolis area for 8+ years, Whitney is a Kentucky girl by heart with roots in Eastern and Central Kentucky and plans to relocate back to the Lexington area soon. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, staying active, being outside, seeing live music, collecting and listening to records, being creative, and reading.

As a Senior Content Specialist, Brittany Chimento develops content and provides coaching support to facilitators of NCFL’s Activate! Local programming. She also provides design and digital engagement support within her role.

Brittany holds a degree from the University of Florida (Go Gators!) in Family, Youth, and Community Sciences with an area of specialization in religion. Brittany has prior experience as an early childhood educator (both in and out of Head Start) and several other nonprofit organizations.

In her spare time, she loves to cook, read, enjoy musicals, and binge on Parks and Recreation or The Office for the 9,986,000th time.