# Presentation: 442658

## Parents Are The PowerEngaging Parents in Prevention Efforts

- Lisa Cech, Boulder Valley School District
- Leisha Conners Bauer, Boulder County Healthy Youth Alliance
- Paula Nelson, Parent Engagement Network

## Agenda

- History/Overview
- PEN DVD
- Barriers Activity
- Lessons Learned
- Cultural Proficiency
- PEN tools
- Sample Parent Interactive Evening
- Action Planning

## Parent Engagement Network

- Mission
- Creating a caring, connected, safe community in partnership with all youth and adults.

## Overview

- Started as substance abuse task force
- Responding to 2001 Youth Risk Behavior Survey local results
- Three committees – parent, students, policy
- Parents began to pressure district to become more proactive

## Parent Engagement Network

- What it IS and IS NOT

| Is |  | Is NOT |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Parent Movement |  | Parenting Class |
| Empowering |  | Disapproving |
| Creating Social Networks |  | Reinforcing Parental Isolation |
| Powered by Data |  | Powered by Anecdote |
| Parent Driven |  | School Driven |

**Notes:**
Paula

## Champions

- Importance of community champions
- Structure and support of school district
- Site based management v. centralized management
- Endorsement and support from superintendent
- Natural allies
- County public health department
- Recovery community (parents with children struggling with substance abuse issues)

**Notes:**
Leisha, lisa

## PEN DVD

## Barriers

- At your table:
- Identify the reasons parents in your community are not involved in prevention activities or in their child’s lives.
- List the specific barriers to participation.

**Notes:**
Liesha/lisa

## Barriers Part 2

- At your table:
- Take each barrier you identified and cross out all of the ones that you have no control over.
- In your table group, discuss the barriers that you do have control over.

## Lessons Learned

- Must believe that parents DO care and WANT to be involved
- Must be responsive to the needs of the community (ex. Internet safety presentations)
- Must recruit and build relationships – always
- Teams at schools doing the work
- Coaching for teams is necessary

**Notes:**
Paula/Leisha

## Lessons Learned

- Stipends help but not critical
- Principals need to be on board and understand how this helps them
- This work supports academic achievement (required by NCLB)
- Needs to be a balanced focus encompassing resiliency work, risk reduction, etc.
- It’s an on-going process requiring constant fine-tuning

## Evolution	

- Responding to the needs of the community
- Creating sustainability
- Getting the work done

## Cultural Proficiency

- Use Lindsey Model in Boulder Valley and with PEN
- Where are we on continuum of working with diverse populations (destructiveness, defense, blindness, pre-competence, competence, proficiency)?
- How does this impact our ability to work with diverse populations?

## Cultural Proficiency

- It is an *inside-out *approach
- It is about being aware of how we work with others
- It is about being aware of how we react to those different from us

**Notes:**
Inside-out:  
-Culture is predominant force; you cannot NOT be influenced by culture.
-People are served in varying degrees by the dominant culture.
-It is important to acknowledge the group identity of individuals.
-Diversity within culture is important.
-Transform approaches to changing personal leadership behaviors and school practices.
-Examine personal values, and behavior
-Adapt practices to meet the needs of students and community you serve

## What does it look like?

- Your core values:
***	******Values*** and ***behaviors*** of an individual that enable effective cross cultural interactions among students, teachers, administrators and community
- Your organizational structures and systems:
***	******Policies***, ***practices and procedures*** at your school are equitable and ensure success of all students,
- Your language and actions
-     All member of your school demonstrates the characteristics of culturally proficiency school.

## The Continuum Helps Us...

- Assess personal, cultural,  and organization progress;
- Describe policies, practices with common language;
- Project a future state;
- Gauge distance between current and future state; and
- Plan for change.

## 
See the Difference ....

Cultural Destructiveness:  stomp it out!

Cultural Incapacity:  make it wrong!

Cultural Blindness:  act like you don’t!

Cultural Pre-competence:  respond inadequately!

Cultural Competence:  understand the difference that difference makes!

Cultural Proficiency:  respond positively and affirmingly!

**See the Difference ....**
**Cultural Destructiveness:  **stomp it out!
**Cultural Incapacity:  **make it wrong!
**Cultural Blindness:  **act like you don’t!
**Cultural Pre-competence:  **respond inadequately!
**Cultural Competence:  **understand the difference that difference makes!
**Cultural Proficiency:  **respond positively and affirmingly!

- The Continuum

## PEN Tools

- Sample interactive evening
- Team leader toolkit and training
- Coaching – with staff and experienced parent leaders
- Book groups – ex., Sue Blaney book groups
- Calendar
- Flyers
- Outreach teams
- Community resources and partners
- Leadership retreat
- Evaluation
- Parent surveys

**Notes:**
Paula

## PEN Toolkit

## Sample Calendar

**Notes:**
Paula

## Sample Flyers

**Notes:**
paula

## Sample Forms

## Steps For a Successful Interactive Evening

- Invite parents in the early stages of planning
- Use parent input to shape the content – use parent surveys via email, paper, or personal interviews
- Questions to ask:
- Is it a parent event based on the needs of the parents in the school?
- Is the evening based on what you think they need?
- Ask the principal to issue an invitation to parents
- Create a logistics team
- Coach your speaker on the intent for the evening

**Notes:**
Paula

## Sample Presentation

**Notes:**
Leisha

## Everyone is Doing it?

## Sample Presentation

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## Sample Presentation

## Sample Scenarios for Parents

- A friend tells you she found a bong in her son’s backpack.  Her son assured her that it was not his.  How do your respond to your friend?
- Your 13 year-old son is baby-sitting for the Smiths, family friends who live 3 miles from your home.  When the Smith’s return, it’s obvious they have been drinking heavily. What should your son do?

## Discussion

- How can you use this information in talking to your children and other adults in your community?
- Discuss the parent scenarios in your group.
- Be prepared to share out to the group.

## After Albuquerque

- Gathering School Support
- You are excited after attending the GRAA technical assistance conference.  You are inspired to increase parent involvement.
- When you meet with a building principal to discuss the idea, she says, “ We already tried that.  It didn’t work.  These parents just don’t care.”
- How do you respond?

**Notes:**
Lisa

## After Albuquerque

- Creating An Action Plan
- How can you use the information presented today to create a parent engagement movement in your community?
- Talk about how you will address the barriers under your control that you identified at the beginning of the session.
- Identity 3 steps you can take to address your barriers and engage parents.

## Questions?