Message from the Director…Parent Engagement.

Several years ago, the Campaign for Grade Level Reading identified parent engagement as the “secret sauce” for improving reading for children and youth.  But parent engagement wasn’t really a secret, as almost everyone was talking about the value of fully engaging parents and families in the work we do to support, uh…parents and families.  Wait…what?

It’s easy to get a bit confused here…are we trying to engage parents as partners in OUR work…or do we want to work with parents as their partners to support the healthy development of their children?  The parents we’ve begun to work with say it’s the latter.  In fact, they HATE it when we say we want to partner WITH them, and then tell them how we need them to fit into what we want.

Authentic and transformative parent engagement is on a whole other level, and works to support real parent and family ownership in decision-making for shared goals that can lift our community.  ROC the Future’s Parent Engagement Collaborative Action Network (PECAN) has been working to shift the understanding of how we better connect and work with parents as real power-brokers and thought-leaders about what works for them and their children.  The organizations at the PECAN table are moving over (literally), and are creating and giving up seats to parents so that real transformation can happen.

We’re learning together how to do this, and already seeing how it is reshaping our language, actions and informing our beliefs about working together to create real change.   Join us for our Parent Network meeting on Tuesday, February 11th (flyer attached) to hear more, and to become a part of the action.

This year, 2020, is the year of pivots for ROC the Future, and this is absolutely one of them.  Stay tuned to hear more, as 2020 becomes our year of change.

In service,

Jackie Campbell

ROC the Future Alliance Director