FLN TEACHES PARENTS LEADERSHIP SKILLS TO GET RESULTS IN THEIR COMMUNITIES
Family Leadership Network (FLN) is a growing statewide network providing tools and resources for families to choose the path to positively impact their own community. FLN centers the work on authentic parent and family voice supporting people to own their success.
We strive to highlight the necessity for non-traditional leadership of those most impacted after building up their natural skills and become the voice for their family and the people.
Family and community engagement can be the most effective transformative tool for change.
Organically, FLN’s work has a healing centered focus that creates personal growth leading to a positive outcome for their families and finally trickling out into the community when parents see themselves as leaders. Parents become skilled and confident leaders when they are given space to tap into their innate leadership abilities in combination with training on advocacy and civic skills. FLN centers around equity and creates a safe yet challenging space to break open dialogue about systemic oppression and implicit bias that can begin a healing process. FLN leaders gain a deeper understanding that shifts thinking from self to other to systems. Parent leaders are committed to advancing change in their communities because of the sense of connection to one another and the organization.
THREE STEPS TO A STRONGER COMMUNITY
FLN focuses on three areas, Leadership Mentoring, Transforming Schools, and Elevating Communities. Leadership Mentoring is a one on one approach capturing the impact parent leaders want to have and turning it into an action plan that the network will support behind the scenes. In school districts, we have had success with our Family Leadership Academy, a 6-week family and school collaboration process based on equity practices. In 2018, we held our first cohort in the Roosevelt School District in collaboration with Choice For All. The first graduating class began putting together an equity policy for the district. The school board created an Equity Taskforce to address the needs further. Our second cohort will start in Spring 2019 allowing an exciting opportunity to reach more parent leaders and strengthening the bridge to educators. FLN also builds capacity for school board that have a commitment to equity. Elevating communities is our final program area offering a variety of trainings serving parents across communities and partner organizations. FLN supports the work of like-minded organizations that are looking to elevate the voice of families and welcome authentic family engagement. FLN is also entering 2019 with plans to provide expertise and technical assistance to other organizations on their family engagement efforts around New York State.
We are members of the United Parent Leadership Action Network (UPLAN) and work with other parent leadership groups around the country to address national policy issues. Lastly, FLN staff participates in a partnership with New York University’s Metro Center to research evaluation tools for parent leadership and create a framework to define the parent leadership movement clearly.
HERE'S WHATS COMING
2019 is going to be an exciting year for Family Leadership Network as we outreach to increase our membership to parents and community. We will launch a three-part series introducing the three tiers of our work, partner with more school districts on our academy, partner with community organizations to facilitate parent leadership initiatives and grow our statewide network while introducing new projects across the state. For more information or support for family engagement projects, please contact Danielle Asher, director of curriculum and training at dasher@choiceforall.org.
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