These neighborhood program staff members become positive role models for parents. Program administration Education and social service programs should require parent representation on administrative policy boards and program committees. Parents should be empowered to ensure that program activities adequately respond to the concerns and interests of the other parents in the program as well as meet the needs of childhood and adolescence. The absence of these empowered parent policy boards and committees at most preschools, child care centers, schools and social service programs significantly inhibits parent involvement. The attitude of program administrators and staff toward parent involvement often discourages such involvement.
Some programs fail to acknowledge that the parent is the primary influence on a child or adolescent.
Many administrators lack the knowledge, ability or motivation to involve parents in ways that are meaningful to them. As a result, these programs have no parent policy boards and no parent committees. A large number of state-and federally funded education and social service programs require parent participation on policy boards and committees. Many of these programs, however, do not involve parents successfully. Although the administrators and staff members at most of these programs may have standard, published program guidelines and procedures for parent involvement, few encourage parents actively and meaningfully to participate on policy boards and program committees.