A G U I D E T O K E Y I D E A S , E F F E C T I V E A P P R O A C H E S ,

A N D T E C H N I C A L A S S I S TA N C E R E S O U R C E S F O R

M A K I N G C O N N E C T I O N S C I T I E S A N D S I T E T E A M S

part of a series from the Technical Assistance / Resource Center of The Annie E. Casey Foundation

RESIDENTS ENGAGED in

Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods

Maria Elena Orrego, consultant to the Foundation,wrote the original draft of this guide. She had manyhelpers. Judy Langford helped to shape the guideand developed the framework presented in theIntroduction. Yoland Trevino contributed a numberof examples and ideas for the guide. Lizbeth Leesoncontributed work on promising practices for familyengagement. Lina Cramer provided many of thePromising Approaches and Resources. JackieRobinson reviewed all materials, conducted a num-ber of interviews with parent leaders, and helpedshape the content of the guide. Ms. Robinson is aformer resident of Cabrini Green Housing Develop-ment in Chicago; she is also a parent leader whoknows firsthand the importance of and difficulties ofresident engagement in low-income neighborhoods.Cheryl Rogers of the Center for the Study of SocialPolicy put the guide into its final form.

A list of Technical Assistance/Resource CenterResource Guides appears on the inside back cover.

Acknowledgments

The Annie E. Casey Foundation

The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private charitable organization dedicated to helping build better futures

for vulnerable children and families in the United States. It was established in 1948 by Jim Casey, one of the

founders of United Parcel Service, and his siblings, who named the foundation in honor of their mother.

Headquartered in Baltimore, the Foundation is the largest private foundation in the nation dedicated solely to

the needs of vulnerable children and families, with assets of more than $3 billion. The Foundation’s grants are

intended to help states, cities, and neighborhoods improve the life chances of the millions of American children at

risk of poor educational, economic, social, and health outcomes. For more information, visit the Foundation’s

website at www.aecf.org.

Preface to Family Strengthening Resource Guides P. 2

Executive Summary P. 6

Introduction P. 8

Potential Requests, Opportunities, and Challenges P. 14

A. What Issues Might Neighborhood Residents and Leaders Raise About

Resident Engagement? P. 14

B. What Are the Trends and Opportunities on Which Sites Can Build? P. 17

C. What Challenges Might Sites Face? P. 18

Promising Approaches and Resources P. 20

A. Family Engagement Strategies P. 20

1. Neighbors Helping Neighbors P. 20

2. Community Dialogue and Citizen Voices P. 21

3. Outreach to Neighborhood Families P. 27

4. Family Recreation, Education, and Social Activities P. 29

5. Neighborhood Projects, Mini-Grants, and Parent Council Funds P. 31

B. Family-Friendly Places P. 32

1. Schools, Preschools, and Child Care Facilities P. 33

2. Community Centers and Family Resource Centers P. 37

3. Faith Communities, Civic Clubs, and Neighborhood Associations P. 38

C. Family Leadership Development P. 39

1. Parent Leadership Training P. 40

2. Family-Focused Community Organizing and Family Advocacy P. 42

D. Putting It All Together P. 44

Resources P. 46

contents

Children do well when their families do well, andfamilies do better when they l ive in supportiveneighborhoods.

This simple premise underlies Making Connections,the centerpiece of a 10- to 15-year commitment bythe Annie E. Casey Foundation to improving thelife chances of vulnerable children by helping tostrengthen their families and neighborhoods. TheFoundation is working in 22 American cities to pro-mote neighborhood-scale programs, policies, andactivities that contribute to stable, capable families.

Making Connections seeks to help families raisehealthy, confident, and successful children by tappingthe skills, strengths, leadership, and resilience thatexist in even the toughest neighborhoods. The ini-tiative is founded on the belief that families andtheir children can succeed if the people who live,work, and hold positions of influence in distressedneighborhoods make family success a priority—andif there are deliberate and sustained efforts withinthe broader community and at the state level notonly to connect isolated families to essential resources,opportunities, and supports, but also to improve thematerial conditions of the neighborhood.

The Foundation is dedicated to helping selectedcommunities engage residents, civic groups, publicand private sector leadership, and faith-based orga-nizations in efforts to transform the toughest neigh-borhoods into family-supportive environments.

Making Connections seeks to enable residents in theseneighborhoods to live, work, play, earn decentwages, and interact with family, friends, neighbors,and social institutions in a safe, congenial, andenriching environment.

In order to improve the health, safety, educa-tional success, and overall well-being of children,

Making Connections is a long-term campaign aimedat helping selected cities build alliances and mobilizeconstituencies at the neighborhood level.

Making Connections has identified three kinds ofconnections essential to strengthening families:

Economic opportunities that enable parents tosecure adequate incomes and accumulate savings,thus assuring their families the basic necessitiesof food, clothing, shelter, and health care. Tomeet this need, communities must address jobdevelopment, employment training, wage sup-plements, and asset-building strategies—all ofwhich help ensure predictable incomes, which inturn bolster healthy child development.

Socia l networks in the community, includingfriends, neighbors, relatives, mentors, commu-nity organizations, and faith-based institutionsthat provide neighbor-to-neighbor support andhelp family members feel more confident and lessisolated.

Services and supports, both formal and informal,public and private, which provide preventive as

preface to family strengtheningresource guides

M A K I N G C O N N E C T I O N S C I T I E S

Atlanta MilwaukeeBaltimore New OrleansBoston OaklandCamden PhiladelphiaDenver ProvidenceDes Moines San AntonioDetroit San DiegoHartford SavannahIndianapolis SeattleLouisville St. LouisMiami Washington, D.C.

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well as ongoing assistance, and are accessible,affordable, neighborhood based, family centered,and culturally appropriate. These might includehigh-quality schools, health care, housing assis-tance, and affordable child care.

How will we know when Making Connections goals

have been achieved?

Making Connections will have succeeded in a citywhen community leaders and residents have built alocal movement on behalf of families that has thepower and momentum to accomplish the following:

Build on existing efforts and spur neighborhood-scale, family strengthening strategies that reducefamily isolation by increasing their connectionsto critical economic opportunities, strong socialnetworks, and accessible supports and services.

Use these neighborhood-scale initiatives torethink, revamp, and redirect policies, practices,and resources on a citywide scale to improve theodds that all families succeed.

As this movement grows, it will enable each cityto know it is succeeding in a number of other ways:

When parents have the means, confidence, andcompetence to provide for their families eco-nomically, physically, and emotionally;

When residents have people to talk to and placesto go for help, support, and camaraderie;

When families feel safe in their homes and intheir neighborhoods;

When children are healthy, succeed in school,and go on to college or a job after high school;

When communities offer the resources familiesneed to pass on a legacy of literacy and opportu-nity to their children.

What do we mean by “family strengthening”?

Family strengthening policies, practices, and activi-ties recognize the family as the fundamental influ-ence in children’s lives. These policies and practicesboth reinforce parental roles and messages andreflect, represent, and accommodate families’ inter-ests. Family strengthening means giving parents thenecessary opportunities, relationships, networks, andsupports to raise their children successfully, whichincludes involving parents as decision-makers inhow their communities meet family needs.

A family’s major responsibility is to provide anoptimal environment for the care and healthy devel-opment of its members, particularly its children.Although basic physical needs — housing, food,clothing, safety, and health—are essential, childrenalso need a warm emotional climate, a stimulatingintellectual environment, and reliable adult relation-ships to thrive.

Threats to a family’s ability to manage its respon-sibilities come from many sources: externally gener-ated crises, such as a job or housing loss, or internalcrises, such as child abuse or estrangement amongfamily members. Unexpected events, such as thebirth of a child with a disability or a teen’s substanceabuse problems, or more common events, like newjobs, marriages, deaths, and household moves, pre-cipitate potentially destabilizing changes. The fam-ily’s ongoing stability hinges on its ability to sustainitself through these disruptions. To help familiescope effectively with crises and normal life events,communities need a variety of resources, includingadequate and accessible services for children at allstages of their development, effective supportiveservices for families, and a critical mass of healthyfamilies who can effectively support their neighbors.

Family strengthening policies and practices con-sider the whole family, not just individual familymembers. Often, agency protocols and programs

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create tensions inadvertently when their focusexcludes family needs. A striking example is a well-intentioned nutrition program arranged to ensurethat homeless children were fed breakfast, lunch,and dinner at school. The children’s parents andother siblings had no source of food, however, andthe program participants had no opportunity toshare meals with the rest of their families. Once theprogram leaders recognized the problem, parentsand siblings were included in the school mealtimes,and the program designers learned to reconsidertheir strategies. Similarly, many welfare-to-workprograms report difficulties in job retention becauseof family stresses—stresses often resulting from thejobs themselves. When a family member finds work,family rituals, logistical patterns, roles, and responsi-bilities change. More successful programs considerthese disruptions ahead of time and develop ways tohelp the family cope.

What do we mean by “strengthening neighborhoods”?

Families must be helped to thrive within the contextof their neighborhoods and broader communities.Job development, for example, should be coordi-nated with specific local or regional businesses, andcommunity economic development should buildon the resources of each unique neighborhood.Connecting families to economic opportunities canhave a ripple effect: Just living in a neighborhoodwhere a substantial number of families work canreinforce positive expectations for the children inthe neighborhood.

Making Connections recognizes that the informalsocial networks that are most important to people(their friends, neighbors, faith communities, andclubs) almost always exist at the neighborhood level.Time and time again, these natural helping net-works prove most important to families’ abilities toraise their children successfully. One component ofstrengthening neighborhoods is thus to invest in the

social capital provided by neighborhood-basednetworks. At the same time, Making Connectionsseeks to widen the networks that families have attheir disposal, thereby broadening their aspirations,attitudes, and opportunities. Linking families tobroader networks both within and outside their ownneighborhoods promises to open up new possibili-ties for children and parents alike.

Finally, strengthening neighborhoods meansplacing formal public services in neighborhoods, andmaking them comfortable rather than intimidatingfor families. This requires redefining the jobs ofpublic workers so that professionals from severalseparate mainline systems — as well as naturalhelpers or informal caregivers—work together inteams and are deployed to specific neighborhoods totake the necessary steps to help families succeed.

The Technical Assistance/Resource Center

The Foundation’s Technical Assistance/ResourceCenter (TARC) seeks to connect people in the 22cities to powerful ideas, skillful people and organiza-tions, examples of what works in other communities,and opportunities to develop leadership skills intheir own neighborhoods. It provides assistance tothe 22 Making Connections cities on a range of topics,from building alliances that lead to stronger familiesin healthier, more stable communities, to diversestrategies that community leaders may pursue interms of jobs, housing, safety, schools, and healthcare. TARC responds to the sites’ priorities througha “help desk” approach, which seeks to meet sites’requests for assistance, and “peer consultation,”where colleagues who have successfully addressed aparticular problem help their peers in other commu-nities to frame and solve a similar issue. In this way,

Making Connections cities can capitalize on the prac-tical knowledge that emerges from on-the-groundinnovators.

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One component of the Foundation’s technicalassistance strategy is a set of Resource Guides,including this one. The Resource Guides articulatethe Foundation’s perspective about issues pertainingto Making Connections sites, as well as summarizetrends in the field, highlight effective examples, andpoint to people, organizations, and materials thatcan provide additional help. The Resource Guidesare intended first for Foundation staff, in order tocreate a common fund of knowledge across a broadrange of issues. Second, the guides are intended forresidents and other leaders in Making Connectionscities who may want to learn more about specificsubjects.

The precise number of Resource Guides willfluctuate as demand changes, but approximately 15guides will be produced by the end of 2001 (see theinside back cover for a list). All guides will addresstopics aimed at both supporting individual familiesand strengthening neighborhoods. The guides fallinto four categories: (1) Economic Opportunities forFamilies, (2) Enhancing Social Networks, (3) BuildingHigh-Quality Services and Supports, and (4) Tech-niques for Advancing a Family Strengthening Agendain Neighborhoods.

The guides in the first three categories addresssubstantive areas in which activities can directly leadto better outcomes for children and families as wellas strengthen neighborhoods. The first EconomicOpportunity Resource Guide, on jobs, for example,provides information about how to connect low-income residents to regional and local labor markets,allowing families to provide for their basic necessitiesand contributing to family stability. Simultaneously,successful jobs initiatives fortify the neighborhoodsin which they operate, making them more attractiveplaces to live and providing strong incentives foryounger residents to participate in the labor force.

Likewise, the Resource Guides in the second andthird categories were chosen because they affectboth individual families and their neighborhoods.For instance, the guide on housing is intended tohelp communities provide affordable housing to low-income families, which in turn leads to enhancedhousing stock and more desirable neighborhoods.The guide on child care seeks to help communitiesdevelop plans for increasing the supply of affordable,quality child care—especially the notoriously hard-to-find care for infants and school-age children, andcare during nontraditional work hours. Achievingthis goal not only would improve the developmentalpreparation of young children, but it also would helpstabilize parental employment, enhance the viabilityof neighborhood enterprises, and promote safer,better-connected communities.

The guides in the last category address techniquesfor advancing neighborhood-based family strength-ening work, such as how to develop a communica-tions strategy and how to use data and maintainaccountability for specific outcomes.

Additional guides may be developed as newrequests for assistance surface from the sites. Weview these guides not as an end in themselves, but asa first step in posing and answering some of themost difficult questions we face about how to helpfamilies in the toughest neighborhoods. Toward thisend, we welcome readers’ comments and thoughtson any of the subjects included in these guides.

Douglas W. NelsonPresidentThe Annie E. Casey Foundation

Frank FarrowDirectorTechnical Assistance/Resource CenterThe Annie E. Casey Foundation

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Resident engagement is based on a simple andstraightforward notion: that residents should havethe most to say about what happens in their livesand in their neighborhoods. The Annie E. CaseyFoundation’s Making Connections initiative is dedicatedto helping families in low-income neighborhoodsconnect to a range of supports and opportunitiesand to develop stronger voices about what happensin their neighborhoods. Residents are at the centerof this work, supported by and aligned with others—faith communities, schools, community organizations,elected officials, human service agencies—whosecommitment is also essential to transforming toughneighborhoods. The Foundation’s role is to help buildupon residents’ wisdom, knowledge, and talents,equipping them to act on their own behalf and tobring about the changes they desire in their familiesand neighborhoods.

The Introduction describes two types of residentengagement activities and lays out a framework forthinking about families along a continuum from“isolated” to “connected.” The framework recog-nizes that many families are already well-connectedto other residents and institutions but that there arealways some families in every neighborhood whohave minimal supportive social relationships or con-nections to formal or informal community organiza-tions. The goal for these latter families is for them toconnect to a variety of supportive networks aimed athelping them meet their own basic needs, fromhousing, to jobs, to essential relationships within thecommunity. Another type of activity, “collectiveaction,” describes what happens when groups of res-idents organize or work together to effect changewithin their immediate neighborhood or community—or even at the city and state level. This frameworkspans the entire range of families—from those whoare not connected to their neighbors or any com-munity networks to those families who seek outand nurture relationships with family and neighborsand with organized religious and social groups. All

families, we believe, can contribute to the aims of

Making Connections. Different outreach and engage-ment strategies can help families reach this goal.

Potential Requests, Opportunities, and Challengesanticipates some of the questions and requests thatresidents might have, from how to multiply and sus-tain family engagement and leadership over time, tohow they will know when they are on the righttrack. As site teams become familiar with the multi-tude of resources, assets, and stakeholders in eachsite, they will discover a wealth of informal and for-mal leadership that already exists in the community.This section offers some ideas for ways to recognizethe opportunities for nurturing existing family lead-ership. However promising these opportunities forimprovement may seem, site teams will face formi-dable challenges, including resident skepticism andthe difficult task of helping residents seek out andsecure funding for community projects. Shiftingfrom a token or nominal parent representation—weuse the term “parent” here to include grandparents,other kin, or guardians who provide a parenting rolefor youth—to full involvement in decision-making willrequire dedication from site teams working togetherwith neighborhood residents, and plenty of hard work.

Promi s i ng Approaches and Resources providesdescriptions of innovative models for developing andenhancing resident engagement and family leader-ship. The section is organized into four categories:

A. Family Engagement Strategies gives examples ofneighbors helping neighbors, including strategiesthat help connect residents with each other by linking,assisting, and supporting one another. Communitydialogues and citizen voices provide approaches forconnecting citizens to decisions and policies thataffect their children, their families, and their neigh-borhoods. Other outreach strategies are described:engagement opportunities, family recreation, educa-tion and cultural activities, and neighborhood projectsled by residents.

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executive summary

B. Family-Friendly Places outlines how to developspaces in a neighborhood that welcome families:places where children go to learn and play (schools,preschools, child care, and recreation centers); placeswhere families go for assistance (family resourcecenters or community service centers); and placeswhere families spend part of their time (faith commu-nities, community centers, or clubs). All can playimportant roles in providing opportunities for familyleadership to grow.

C. Family Leadership Development strategies includeprograms to support families in meeting their basicneeds as well as in their collective actions to undertakebroader neighborhood projects. Parent leadershiptraining, community organizing, and advocacy thatis focused on family issues are all part of the land-scape here.

D. Putting It All Together explores what a communitymight look like when a combination of these andother approaches becomes the accepted way of doingbusiness. This section highlights a range of leadershipopportunities that support and strengthen familiesto create a holistic approach to personal and neigh-borhood transformation.

These four categories of promising approachesdescribe efforts whereby residents have taken leader-ship roles in individual and small-scale collectiveaction projects. They do not include examples fromthe larger field of community organizing where resi-dents get involved in political and social movementson a bigger scale. This is an important body of activityin its own right. It is a component of many MakingConnections activities, and it will be discussed in aseparate Resource Guide. This guide focuses,instead, on how residents assume leadership rolesfor the betterment of their own families and howthey build stronger relationships among smallgroups of neighborhood residents.

The Resources section lists organizations that canprovide additional information, advice, and directassistance on how residents become engaged in apersonal and neighborhood transformation agenda.

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Making Connections is an initiative aimed at strength-ening families by connecting them to their ownsources of power. Families—parents, their children,and their network of relatives and friends—are themost important stakeholders in Making Connections.The initiative envisions families taking charge ofshaping their own agendas, bringing other residentsinto the group, and, ultimately, putting in place strate-gies for achieving their own goals and monitoring theresults. In Making Connections, residents’ and families’interests are aligned with those of other neighborhoodand citywide stakeholders to strengthen families andimprove their neighborhoods.

The central question for Making Connections is:“How do we connect families to each other and to afamily strengthening agenda in a given neighbor-hood?” Making Connections is not about doing some-thing for residents but about creating a partnershipwith residents to develop an agenda that they design.It is not about making backroom deals with agenciesand professionals on behalf of low-income residents;instead, it aims to establish an open dialogue withresidents and professionals together and with familymembers as equal partners in setting a neighbor-hood agenda.

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introduction

From its inception, the Mutual Assistance Network (MAN) in the Del Paso Heights neighborhoodof Sacramento, California, has relied heavily on the leadership and engagement of residents.Where many local collaborative efforts struggle to generate desired levels of resident involvement,MAN — a nonprofit community organization — is succeeding impressively.

MAN’s approach to resident engagement rests on four key principles: start small and build whatneighborhood people want using their capabilities, continually build capacity to take advantage ofstrategic opportunities as they arise, focus on a defined geographic area, and do everything withhigh levels of resident involvement in key decision-making roles.

These principles are bearing fruit, as residents are involved in every level of activity at MAN.Residents take the lead in a neighborhood food distribution program, in working and managingneighborhood gardens where over 100 families grow enough food to feed their families and evensell leftovers, in a dropout prevention program for students, and so on and so on. In fact, one-halfof the organization’s board of directors is comprised of neighborhood residents — including twopositions for youth. Typically, residents comprise seventy percent of MAN’s staff.

In Del Paso Heights, resident engagement extends beyond participation in MAN’s activities.Residents also serve on a number of county and city advisory committees. And when an issueof importance to the community arises (public transportation, welfare reform, housing, andeconomic revitalization), residents are often on the front lines offering insightful, resident-centered definitions of the issues and innovative solutions. In sum, the Mutual AssistanceNetwork is a good example where a community-based organization has successfully engagedand empowered residents to work together to improve their lives and their neighbors’ lives.

when i t worksRESIDENT ENGAGEMENT

Residents need to participate in setting theagenda from the very beginning rather than beingbrought in later to react to a preconceived agenda.Foundation staff and local agency representativesshould listen carefully to parents’ concerns andthoughts rather than try to tell residents what theyshould want.

Our first goal was to have an ESL (English as a secondlanguage) class for the parents at the school. It began inSeptember, four days a week. Our second goal was to getthe school to provide room for parents to gather togetherand meet. We met with the principal and she agreed to doit, so we opened our Parents’ Room. Our third goal was toorganize a kermis (a mini-carnival/cultural affair). Wewanted to recruit more parents, let others know about ourwork, and let families have fun together. We held thekermis in June. After we accomplished our three goals,we set a new one—to learn better how to involve moreparents. — Member of a Parent Action Team, Talcott

School, Chicago

What do we mean by “resident engagement”?The term is widely used to describe an array ofefforts aimed at connecting families to informal net-works of support, to formal services and programs,and to a variety of community-based activities.Different initiatives and communities define residentengagement differently, and use different standardsfor measuring success. Since Making Connections hasspecific aims, it is important to examine what exactlywe mean by “resident engagement.”

First, it is important to note that engagement bydefinition constitutes a promise. The Foundation isoffering its word as a promise of committed involve-ment in the lives of residents and neighborhoods.Whether our promise is explicit or tacit, we agree tobe present at a specified time and place and we bindourselves with our pledge to be actively involved.This commitment is carried out over time. Ours isnot a casual, fleeting engagement; it is meant to be

long-lasting and significant. In communities that areoften the victims of lofty promises by zealous do-gooders, we must not underestimate the importanceof our promises.

Second, resident engagement is about mutual par-ticipation in the dynamics of power and influence.And while this participation is mutual, everyonedoes not participate in exactly the same way. Residentsmust be able to attract and hold influence and pro-fessionals must be willing to be influenced. If we areto be joined, interlocked, or engaged with oneanother for the cause of stronger families and trans-formed neighborhoods, true relinquishing of powerby professionals and embracing of influence by resi-dents is imperative. In a very real sense, professionalsaccustomed to exercising influence over residentsmust learn to take a supportive back seat to the aimsand directions of residents as residents define theirown agenda for improving their lives.

A n d t h i r d , r e s i d e n t e n g a g e m e n t i s a n o n g o i n gprocess. It requires commitment and work. Thereare no easy solutions and quick fixes. It is the collec-tive work of both the people in the neighborhoodsand those who live outside the neighborhoods butare committed to neighborhood aims. Residentengagement is the hard and rewarding work ofinterlocking residents’ commitments, leadership,and efforts with the promised support and lastingparticipation of other stakeholders.

Figure One on page 11 shows one way of think-ing about different levels of engagement that may existin any neighborhood. The outer circle representsresidents who are mostly isolated from others intheir neighborhood and beyond. These are familieswho rarely venture out of their homes, who have fewfriends or relatives in the area, or who may notbelong to any organization or spiritual group. Theymight be newly arrived immigrants who speak littleor no English, people with mental health or substance

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abuse problems who shun contact with outsiders, oreven parents who work at night and must sleep dur-ing the day. One of Making Connections goals is toengage these isolated families and connect them to arange of other individuals, groups, and networks.

The second circle represents residents who areinvolved in activities aimed at helping meet their

basic family needs. These are individual familiesseeking to provide for the basic necessities of life—food, shelter, health care, education, and jobs—aswell as the less tangible but equally important needssuch as supportive social relationships and time tospend together as families. These families are workinghard to obtain stable housing, decent jobs, financialmanagement skills, and the capacity to provide a

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It is important that Foundation staff and consultants practice these principles when working withresidents in Making Connections sites:

Primary responsibility for the development and well-being of children lies with the family.All neighborhood efforts should support the creation of optimal conditions for families tocarry out this vital task.

Families and neighborhood residents are either already competent or have the capacity tobecome competent to make positive changes in their own lives and their neighborhoods.With adequate knowledge, skills, and resources, residents can recognize the wealth of talentsin their neighborhood, mobilize resources, and find solutions to their own problems.

Relationships between Making Connections site teams and resident families are based onequality and respect, recognizing that all partners in the process have something to giveas well as to receive.

Supporting individual family needs and caring for one’s own children come first. We canexpect parents to attend to the broader needs of their neighbors only after their children’sneeds are met.

If we expect parents to participate meaningfully in a neighborhood initiative, we need to pro-vide ample logistical supports, such as child care, translation services, transportation, andeconomic compensation. We also need to provide safe spaces where parents are comfortableexpressing their most personal feelings and thoughts.

Community change requires participation from everyone. Everyone matters and everyoneshould have a chance to be a part of the process: children and youth; adults and the elderly;the quiet and the outspoken; people of all races, languages, sexual orientations, and faiths.

Developing and sustaining community change takes a long time and ongoing efforts toinvolve residents at multiple levels of leadership. Neighborhood institutions, service agencies,informal networks, and families themselves can all provide opportunities for participation andleadership in long-term change.

guiding PRINCIPLES for RESIDENT ENGAGEMENT

11

more nurturing environment for their children.Their engagement with other people and with for-mal services or organizations is primarily focused onthe needs of their families.

The third circle in Figure One represents familieswho are more fully connected to economic opportu-nity, to the services they need, and to various supportnetworks, from networks of family and friends torelationships with community groups. Families inthis circle call on others when they need advice,support, a babysitter, or simply someone to talk to,and provide the same kind of support to others.Families see themselves as leaders in their ownfamilies and networks.

Finally, the inner circle represents residentsengaged in “collective action”— when residents

work together to improve conditions on a particularblock, in the local school or neighborhood, or evenwithin the city or state. Projects such as organizingcrime-fighting block groups, park cleanups, schoolimprovement campaigns, and launching new com-munity health clinics fall into this category. Theseresidents are deeply committed to larger communityissues that transcend their own personal family life,and many are actively engaged with others inattempts to bring about change. Some may alreadybe leaders in neighborhood affairs, as members ofcommunity boards, or in other leadership positions.

One of Making Connections’ central goals is tohelp as many families as possible move toward par-ticipation in collective action. But we also know thatfamilies with overwhelming personal needs find it

thinking aboutRESIDENT ENGAGEMENT

Isolated Residents

Residents Involved in Meeting Basic Needs

Residents Connected toVarious Support Networks

Residents Engaged inCollective

Action

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difficult to join with others in addressing largerneighborhood issues. The goal of resident engage-ment is to provide many opportunities for individualfamilies’ increasing connection to a range of sup-ports while simultaneously providing opportunitiesfor collective action.

Multiple circles are used in Figure One to indi-cate that the engagement process is not necessarilylinear or sequential. People move back and forthfrom one circle to another. Residents will getinvolved in one activity or another because of theirparticular circumstances at a given point and thenchange when their needs change. Families who faceeviction, who suddenly find themselves out of work,or whose children are in trouble with the law, forexample, may retreat for a time from connectionswith others while they focus on their own needs, thenreturn later to involvement in their neighborhood.

The levels of engagement are also interrelated.Resident leaders often serve as mentors to familiesjust beginning to be involved in neighborhoodaction. Extended family members reach out to oth-ers in their families when they are in need. A pri-mary focus of Making Connections is to expand thiskind of community connection. Encouraging analready-engaged family to coach a more isolatedfamily is a strategy that is doubly useful: It gives theisolated family a role model to emulate while help-ing to build leadership skills in the more connectedfamily. But it should also be noted that despite thegreatest outreach efforts, there will always be familieswho retreat from connection with others because ofproblems such as domestic violence or substanceabuse. As a result, the pool of very isolated familiesmay change but not necessarily dwindle. Building acommunity “culture of connection” is essential toproviding as many opportunities as possible forfamilies to get connected when they need to be.

One of the questions was, “Who’s the leader in yourhouse?” And I started to think about it, and it was me.I’m the one who makes sure the kids are in school. I’m theone who makes sure they have their shots, the bills arepaid, food’s on the table, and they are safe. So thatchanged my whole life. It was a real awakening for me.My self-esteem was very, very low. I didn’t think that Iwould be able to do any activities that didn’t revolvearound school, the kids, and getting back in the house.Once I found out that I was the one in control of my lifeand my surroundings, I started to take those small steps tolook out to my neighborhood. — Parent, Community

Organizing and Family Issues, Chicago

Why are resident engagement and leadershipdevelopment activities important? Why should fam-ilies in the toughest neighborhoods trust yet anothergroup of do-gooders that appears with promises ofchange?

Frankly, they shouldn’t trust rhetoric alone. UnlessMaking Connections teams hold to a definition and toconsistent examples of resident engagement thathonor engagement promises in word and action,place residents squarely in major leadership roles,and demonstrate meaningful partnerships, theFoundation cannot legitimately ask residents toengage in an agenda that would not be their own.

Outsiders have arrived in neighborhoods before,made pledges, and then left when the resourcesdwindled. Residents have been labeled, writtenabout, and studied, yet problems continue to esca-late. Enthusiasm for the possibility of a better lifeoften wanes when changes do not materialize andthe underlying conditions in the neighborhood remainthe same. No wonder most residents are skeptical ofyet another neighborhood change initiative.

Gaining residents’ trust and helping them becomethe natural leaders of this effort will be one of themost daunting challenges of the work—but also the

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most rewarding. If families are not allowed to definetheir own goals, set their own agendas, or decideupon the changes needed in their neighborhood, thework of outsiders may well be irrelevant. In the past,too many community initiatives have presumed thata particular neighborhood needed a specific service(more affordable child care or an after-school pro-gram, for example), without involving residents inthe decisions, only to discover later that somethingelse (like greater participation in designing the newneighborhood school) would have been more help-ful. We don’t want to repeat the same mistakes.

This is the first time that anyone has asked me my opin-ion about anything of any importance.—Boston parent,

Dudley Street visioning process

We also want to be sure that we are building agreater capacity to sustain neighborhood change inthe long term. Ultimately, when Foundation siteteams and technical assistance experts leave thecommunity, families should have acquired the skillsto continue to make known their goals, to mobilizenew resources when old ones are depleted, and tomultiply and sustain their contributions to theirneighborhood over time. Every investment to sup-port the development of leadership in families willyield not only stronger families but, most important,will also seed the ground for a future generation ofleaders.

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A . W H A T I S S U E S M I G H T N E I G H B O R H O O D

R E S I D E N T S A N D L E A D E R S R A I S E A B O U T

R E S I D E N T E N G A G E M E N T ?

Site teams should prepare for several questions frompeople in Making Connections neighborhoods:

How ready are Foundation staff to partner withfamilies in each site?

Before we launch our efforts to support families inthe Making Connections initiative, we are challengedto first examine our own personal beliefs. For amoment, reflect on your own perceptions and biasesby answering the following questions:

What do I believe about families in MakingConnections neighborhoods?

What have I been told about them, and how hasit influenced my thinking?

Do I really believe these families can make it?

How much do I know about their strengths andresilience?

And perhaps most important, can I view familiesas true leaders and actively support their right todecide upon the changes they want for themselvesand their neighborhoods, even if I don’t agreefully with their decisions? Why does my agree-ment with families’ decisions matter?

If I cannot view families as true leaders, activelysupport their decisions, and support families evenwhen we disagree, should I be involved inMaking Connections? What current thinking andattitudes do I need to overcome, if any?

Foundation staff and consultants must believe infamilies’ capacities before they can facilitate residentempowerment. Perhaps the most significant shift in

neighborhood transformation lies not in the residentsand neighborhoods themselves, but in our profes-sions’ view of them and in our notions of how to helpthem build on their natural leadership skills. As onecommunity leader aptly put it: “People have skillsand gifts. They make decisions every day. Partnersdon’t train partners—you work with them.”

How do we multiply and sustain family engage-ment over time?

Engagement strategies (which are illustrated in thePromising Approaches and Resources section of thisguide) include formal and informal approaches,ranging from door-to-door canvassing to neighbor-hood meetings and cultural events. Using residentsto reach out to other residents can be an effectiveway of engaging families in meeting basic needs andcollective action. Meetings are most successful whenscheduling, location, and transportation issues areconsidered; when child care is provided; whenstipends are offered to offset the expenses that fami-lies incur while participating; and when there isplenty of food and time to socialize. Meetings shouldalso offer a safe space for open conversations so thatpeople feel free to express their inner thoughts andhopes. Finally, opportunities for concrete involvementand action should be discussed. According toEnrique Orozco, program manager at the UrbanChildren’s Coalition in Denver, providing supportto parents is key to their engagement: “It is essentialthat parents are not forced to neglect their familyresponsibilities and that they have full understand-ing of the purpose of the group and their role in it.”

How do we connect family engagement and leader-ship development to community organizing?

Community organizing has been successful in build-ing decent and affordable housing, pushing out drug

potential requests, opportunities, and challenges

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dealers, revitalizing the local economy, and improv-ing schools—all of which have had positive effectson families. However, traditional community orga-nizing efforts have sometimes not had participationfrom large numbers of parents and family membersbecause support for their participation is inadequate.As a result, these efforts sometimes neglect important

issues for families. The emergence of family-focusedcommunity building around the country shows thatthe long-overdue marriage between family develop-ment and community organizing is not only possiblebut can have very successful results. For example, asa community works to remodel affordable housing,it may also rehabilitate a facility to house a family

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A meeting of residents with public and private agency staff in Seattle illustrates the type ofresident engagement envisioned in Making Connections. Eight parents from the Latino communityand ten professionals from the county mental health facility, school district, and several community-based organizations participated in a two-day meeting that began a dialogue about engagingresidents in Making Connections neighborhoods. At earlier meetings, discussions had taken placeabout increasing the role of residents in the planning and implementation of a Making Connectionsneighborhood agenda. A few professionals and parents expressed interest in a model of a professional-natural helper partnership from Miami and wanted an opportunity to explore how to do the samein Seattle, beginning in the Latino community. The two-day meeting was convened to examinehow this might work in Seattle.

From the start, professional staff were asked not to try to provide all the answers themselves or tomove the agenda in a preordained direction, but rather to listen carefully to residents’ concernsand impart information only to help the residents form their own agenda. The meeting was con-ducted in Spanish, with interpreters helping the non-Spanish-speaking professionals participate inthe discussion. Parents shared their hopes for their community and what they wanted to see happenover the next two days. They talked about the lack of child care and transportation in their neigh-borhood, and reported that important meetings were usually scheduled only during the day, whenparents worked, and meetings and materials were often only in English. Parents said they wereexpected to put in many hours as volunteers, yet professionals were paid to participate.

On the second day of the meeting, parents and professionals agreed they wanted to pursue aparent-professional partnership based on the experiences of the Miami model. The group puttogether a plan for the next steps, which included funding for the supports that allow parentparticipation in all planning and implementation efforts, including stipends, child care, transporta-tion, evening meetings, interpreters, and translation of materials. The parents came away from themeeting feeling very good about what was accomplished. They commented that they felt a part ofsomething and were not alone in their efforts. They also said they felt good about seeing theirideas form the basis for the plan they developed. The professionals likewise commented that themeeting went well. They appreciated the parents’ input and commitment and felt that the result-ing plan would be a good one for both groups.

with parentsbui lding a PARTNERSHIP

resource center and a child care center. Or a groupof residents trying to strengthen children’s academicperformance may also work to make the school afamily-friendly environment where the entire familycan receive a variety of supports.

What levels of decision-making should we expectparents to be involved in?

Parents should be involved in all levels of decision-making, from those that affect the smallest units oftheir neighborhood, to those that have an impact ontheir larger community, the city, the state, and eventhe nation. Resident leaders should be expected toplay many different roles from the informal role ofadvisor, as they help other families meet their basicneeds, to more formal representation on boards andcouncils in their community, to lead partners in

decision-making and acting as the dominant force inthe planning, implementation, and governance oflocal, state, and national programs.

There are many ways for residents to make con-nections in their neighborhood without agreeing toany “formal” participation in committees, decision-making, or leadership. Often, residents will be inter-ested in being good neighbors or receiving someassistance themselves, such as bartering for childcare, a ride to the grocery store, or shoveling snow.

Making Connections is as much about being a goodneighbor as it is about being a leader. Neighborhoodassociations or community centers could help tostart a child care exchange, a grandparent supportgroup, or even a Time Dollar project. This type ofengagement is all about families helping families.

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The following indicators may be useful ways to tell if families are engaged:

More families — especially the most isolated — are being engaged in dialogue and are findingconnections to the resources, new friends, neighbors, opportunities, and supports they needto rear healthy children.

Residents influence the allocation and investment of resources in their communities.

Families lead and partner with staff to mobilize residents around concrete actions on issuesthat matter to them.

Supports for family involvement (e.g., child care, transportation, stipends to compensatethem for their time) become the norm in community programs and in public agencies.

Healthy and active relationships between neighborhood organizations and governmentagencies exist.

Parents serve in multiple leadership roles.

Children are well cared for while parents are taking on new leadership roles.

Youth participate in community-organizing efforts and in projects they create.

A spirit of community is emerging, demonstrated by group efforts (collective action) toorganize and celebrate being a part of the neighborhood.

how do we know we are ON THE RIGHT TRACK?

B . W H A T A R E T H E T R E N D S A N D O P P O R -

T U N I T I E S O N W H I C H S I T E S C A N B U I L D ?

Hundreds of families undoubtedly have the potentialto become leaders in their neighborhoods. Yet, iden-tifying natural leaders in the community and oppor-tunities for nurturing family involvement and parentleadership requires systematic “treasure hunting.”Site teams and community leaders may need to visitschools and child care centers, spend time in thewaiting room of the community clinic and at theWIC distribution center, sponsor a “family talk”lunch at the community center, talk to the grocer atthe Mom and Pop corner store, and hang out on thebasketball court with teenagers. It is a labor-intensivejob, but it promises to yield dozens of names ofpeople who might be willing to commit to a resident-driven, neighborhood improvement agenda.

Residents can also be found in the community-based organizations where dedicated staff memberswork with families every day. These are the peoplewho work extra hours transporting parents to andfrom meetings, who carry snacks in their cars forhungry children, who stay without supper until ameeting is over, who take time to translate for par-ents during meetings and discussions held in a differ-ent language (which includes translating professionaljargon). These people may be willing to participatein the neighborhood venture, and they can surelyidentify residents who are natural leaders.

Sharing your observations of a family’s strengths andresources can be a first step in fostering that family’s abil-ity to do the same. When you see a diamond, let the diamondknow; otherwise, the diamond may think it’s just anotherrock.—Ted Bowman, trainer-educator

Many families possess skills and abilities that gounderutilized by service agencies and professionals.They are full of talents and gifts waiting to be noticedand are in need of roles where they can shine asleaders. Look for the support they give each other,

their resourcefulness in finding and securing whatthey need, their enormous reservoir of survivalskills, and their artistic and culinary talents.

Once residents agree to talk, site teams and com-munity leaders may want to ask them a series ofquestions designed to elicit their views on whatneeds to change and what resources are available intheir neighborhood. For example:

What changes would you want to see in yourneighborhood?

What efforts have you and your neighbors madeto help your families and your community?

What are the biggest barriers and difficulties yousee every day?

Where do you find help when you need it?

How do you want to be involved in neighbor-hood change?

What skills and talents do you bring to this effort?

What supports do you need to organize otherparents?

A number of sites may begin programs of familieshelping families. Some neighbors may be interestedin participating in a bartering program or in anotherway of trading their time and talents. Others mightbe interested in occasional get-togethers—supportgroups—to talk about raising children. Neighborhoodnewsletters offer another way for residents to connectto their own activities, resources, and opportunities.

Small-grant programs provide further opportu-nities and support for resident engagement. In theseprograms, residents are encouraged to think aboutand plan for neighborhood improvements—such ascommunity gardens, parks, bus stop shelters, speedbumps, celebrations, basketball courts, urban play-grounds, or other projects that make the neighbor-hood a more thriving place to live in.

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C . W H A T C H A L L E N G E S M I G H T S I T E S F A C E ?

Fear and mistrust are the first barriers that need tobe overcome in any resident engagement strategy.Residents will need to feel safe when speaking theirminds, especially in the early stages of MakingConnections, when people may be suspicious of theFoundation’s intentions. In the course of initial dia-logues, families will decide if joining the initiative isworth their time. People cannot be pressured to fol-low a timetable. Each person will join when he orshe feels ready. The door should always remain open.

The de f i c i t men ta l i t y . Perhaps worse than thepersistent poverty and economic disinvestment char-acterizing Making Connections neighborhoods is thelegacy of dependency on formal systems that requirefamilies to show deficits in order to receive neededservices and resources. Making Connections site teamswill have to work hard to counteract the pervasivedeficit thinking about poor families and their neigh-borhoods, a mentality reflected in labels of familiesas “at-risk,” “dysfunctional,” and “needy,” and of

their neighborhoods as “drug- and crime-ridden.”Years of viewing communities through the “deficitlens” has done vast damage to families, who haveinternalized these views and often believe themselvesto be less capable than they are. Many children,youth, and parents have internalized the “I amworthless” mindset and don’t have hope for theirown futures.

Paternal ist ic attitudes. Making Connections teamscan start off on the wrong foot if residents perceivetheir behavior as paternalistic. Their behaviorshould always encourage residents to take power.Site teams should not try to provide the correctanswers or find solutions for people; rather theyshould offer resources and supports that providemaximum opportunities for residents to see them-selves as competent and able to interact effectivelywith others. This requires a balance between provid-ing enough structure and information, so that residentsare not frustrated by a lack of guidance, and makingample room for residents to take on considerableresponsibility and control.

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Site teams should be on the lookout for any of the following elements:

token parent representation at decision-making tables or a lack of meaningful roles for parents;

inadequate and inflexible funding to support parent participation;

the “I am the expert” professional syndrome that puts parents off and stifles their creativity;

too many meetings without concrete results that members can point to;

too many time demands on parent leaders and a lack of attention and support for theirpersonal and family needs;

logistical and technological barriers to parent participation: lack of credit cards (for travel),telephone, fax, or e-mail; the need for special physical supports; child care for special needschildren, etc.; and

reliance upon professional jargon during meetings that prevents parents from participatingfully in board meetings, seminars, and strategic planning meetings.

minef ie lds , road blocks , wrong turnsMISSED OPPORTUNITIES,

Some of the biggest challenges for site teams willbe upholding the residents’ right to decide their owndestiny instead of cutting deals behind the sceneswhen no family voices are present, encouraging andfacilitating family involvement and leadership whilebalancing attention and support for parents’ primaryresponsibilities within their own families, and lettinggo of their own fears and assumptions so that theycan connect with families in Making Connectionsneighborhoods.

Inadequate funding. Getting residents engaged inMaking Connections will depend greatly on the extentto which they can gain access to a share of fundingresources. Money that comes to neighborhoods tofund services and projects almost always goes toestablished agencies that have the fiscal and staffinfrastructure to manage resources. Residents arerarely invited to apply for funds or encouraged tofind a fiscal umbrella among existing communityorganizations so that they can realistically developprojects and see them through.

This practice has had vast disempowering conse-quences. Funds have been kept in the hands of a feworganizations, some of which have monopolized themarket of grants for years and have thereforeblocked access to emerging groups in the commu-nity. Furthermore, it is unusual for neighborhoodfamilies — the main beneficiaries of those grantfunds and other resources—to be invited to partici-pate in decisions regarding the use of those funds,and they rarely receive reports on how the fundshave been used to make their lives better. Everyyear, hundreds of thousands of grant dollars areawarded to community agencies in neighborhoodsacross the country. Much of the funding leaves thetargeted neighborhoods because hired staff do notlive in the area and services are purchased outsidethe community. In addition, these practices perpetu-ate the belief that resident families are not capable ofcreative solutions to their own problems, and are notsmart enough to manage resources.

Often parents share their stories; they bare their souls.People cry, they come to their feet, they want to save thepoor parent, but all too often the parents get nothing fromit. Parents need to leave with something. Parents need tohave a game plan. They need to know what they wantfrom the experience, they should have a card, and theyshould network. Parents should be paid for their time,and paid equitably. After all, parents are the glue for alot of people’s work. People love you, but what does thatget you? What are the benefits for being a parent leader?Who is willing to pay a parent leader a real salary?People need to attach resources to these conversations.

—Michelle Gaither McDonald, co-director, Hartford

Parent Network

Competing groups of residents. The prospect of theAnnie E. Casey Foundation grants may fuel compe-tition among community-based organizations inMaking Connections neighborhoods. Long-held turfstruggles to control resources may surface immedi-ately or over time. Effectively communicating theintent of the initiative may help stakeholders tounderstand that collaboration and family involvementare nonnegotiable goals. If competition surfaces, thebest approach for site teams may be to support fami-lies in building a solid foundation of agreements onhow they can work collaboratively among themselves,what to do about conflicts, and how to handle turfissues as they arise.

Supporting and sustaining resident leadershipcan be a highly demanding, even taxing, endeavor.There may be resistance from professionals andother stakeholders who must become more flexiblein scheduling and who must slow down the pace ofdecision-making to make room for families as equalpartners. Making Connections site teams and familieswill have to assess their progress frequently in orderto pick up loose ends, strengthen weak areas, identifynew resources, celebrate successes, and reaffirmcommitments to family engagement in the neigh-borhood transformation process.

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promising approaches and resources

This section contains information about strategies,tools, and examples in which families are engaged inefforts aimed at meeting their basic needs. It tellsabout people, places, and programs that have influ-enced the way families mobilize to make decisionsaffecting their family and neighborhood life.Illustrative programs offer strategies for residentengagement, creating family-friendly places, andleadership training and organizing.

It is important to note, however, that no singleexample or strategy alone can transform a neighbor-hood. Rather, individual communities will require acreative mix of approaches aimed at increasing fam-ily engagement and leadership. Although this guideprovides interesting and useful examples, families ineach Making Connections site will need encouragementand support to create their own unique assortmentof promising approaches and resources, many ofwhich may already exist in some form in their ownneighborhoods. Nevertheless, the fact that there aremany more excellent examples of families who tookresponsibility for change than this guide candescribe confirms that significant changes can hap-pen when individuals take action and when familiescome together to collectively improve conditions intheir neighborhood.

A . F A M I L Y E N G A G E M E N T S T R A T E G I E S

In many communities families are engaged as lead-ers and principal partners in the effort to strengthenfamilies and neighborhoods for the ultimate benefitof children and youth. The success or failure ofthese outreach strategies has depended, to a greatextent, on whether they are culturally appropriateand responsive to the needs and issues that familiescare about the most. The models described below fallinto five categories: (1) neighbors helping neighbors;

(2) building and hearing a collective communityvoice; (3) outreach strategies; (4) family recreation,education, and social activities; and (5) special col-lective action on neighborhood projects.

1. Neighbors Helping Neighbors

The Idea

One of the most important ways to strengthen fami-lies is to strengthen the connections they have tonetworks of friends, kin, role models, mentors,faith-based institutions, and other positive socialrelationships. Connecting families means encourag-ing the linkages that help provide neighbor-to-neighbor support and mutual aid, making peoplefeel less isolated and alone. Sometimes this occursinformally. But there are also some emerging tech-nologies, such as the Time Dollar program, thatcreate an ongoing structure that is understandable,respectful, and fair to the families who choose toparticipate.

What to Look Out For

Time Dollar programs are useful in strengtheningfamilies and residents in low-income neighbor-hoods, but they do require resources to design,implement, and sustain. Initially, there may be lessparticipation than desired, so the number and choiceof products and services that can be purchased mustbe allowed to grow as the program is nurtured.

The Idea in Practice

At Abriendo Puertas — Opening Doors — anonprofit neighborhood organization in Miami,Florida, Time Dollars is more than a currency sys-tem. It is also a way to nurture and support families.Begun in 1998, the Time Dollar program and itsparent coordinator, Flor Morales, have discovered

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the strengths and gifts that many neighborhood resi-dents have to offer. When they offer their skills andtalents to other neighborhood residents, they receiveTime Dollars in exchange. Time Dollars can beexchanged for a wide variety of goods and services,including food, carpentry, electrical work, babysit-ting, cooking, training (for example, in English as asecond language or computer classes), immigrationlegal services, or even ballet lessons.

Time Dollars often mean the difference betweena full-fledged economic crisis and survival. When ayoung, single, pregnant woman arrived at AbriendoPuertas with nothing to her name, volunteers cameforward with everything the baby would need atbirth. When the baby arrived and began to thrive,the new mom was able to volunteer her own timeand earned Time Dollars to repay others for theirkindness.

By transferring some of their Time Dollars toothers, participants are able to provide for their ownneeds and care for others as well. When the eldestvolunteer at Abriendo Puertas became ill and couldnot provide for herself, others stepped in to supporther. They each earned Time Dollars with their vari-ous skills, and then donated them to her so shewould be able to buy food and have it delivered toher home where she was confined.

Contact:Max Martinez Time Dollars CoordinatorAbriendo Puertas1401 First Street, SW, Suite 111Miami, FL 33135305-649-6449, ext. 229

For more information about Time Dollar pro-grams in general:

Contact:Edgar Cahn, PresidentTime Dollar InstitutePO Box 42519Washington, DC 20015202-686-5200www.timedollar.org

2. Community Dialogue and Citizen Voices

The Idea

By creating a context where ordinary residents andcitizens believe their voices and their opinions mat-ter, decision-making and advocacy for changebecome a richer, more informed process. Whenthere is a belief that they can, in fact, impact theirown well-being and future, residents are willing tobecome more informed and engaged in issues thataffect them. Many neighborhood families will bewilling to trade off their investment in time andeffort—and it is a trade-off—for a say in decisionsand policies that shape and affect their families andneighborhood. Community organizers have spentdecades helping citizens to have a voice, but thereare still many neighborhood residents who haven’tbeen involved, or don’t yet believe they can make adifference. Tools and technologies such as studycircles, deliberative polling, and Community LivingRooms can be used for soliciting the voices and collec-tive opinions of neighborhood leaders and residents.

A study circle — sometimes called a FamilyCircle—is a simple process for small-group deliber-ation. Study circles turn the traditional top-downapproach to problem solving on its head by gettingneighborhood residents involved from the verybeginning. Study circles get people to talk abouttheir important issues, consider them from every-one’s angle and come to their own conclusions and

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solutions. These small groups—of about eight toten participants—have facilitated discussions, usu-ally sponsored by a host agency, organization, orchurch in the neighborhood. They are family friendlyin offering child care, transportation, food, and,sometimes, stipends to support resident participa-tion. Study circles are time-limited—they will oftenmeet weekly or biweekly for four to six gatherings,so participants know their total time commitment.Study circles were developed by the TopsfieldFoundation, a private nonpartisan foundation dedi-cated to advancing deliberate democracy andimproving the quality of public life in the UnitedStates. Beginning in 1989, the foundation began tohelp communities organize study circles as a way ofinvolving citizens to make a difference in their com-munities. The foundation also created the StudyCircles Resource Center to provide hands-on assis-tance and learning materials. The foundation hasassisted dozens of communities in organizing theirstudy circles and hearing the citizen’s voice. By usingthe study circle approach, neighbors are able to movefrom talk to action because they

build understanding among residents fromdifferent backgrounds or with different opinions;

give people the chance to look at a range of viewsand come up with their own creative solutions;

create ways and opportunities for neighbors tointeract with other key stakeholders, includingpolice officers, teachers, elected officials, andgovernment administrators; and

help residents gain a sense of ownership in theirneighborhoods, including its assets and chal-lenges, as well as the solutions to importantissues they have identified.

A study circle is small-group democracy inaction. Real people who face real problems everyday work together in honest, open, and respectful

ways to look at how specific issues are impactingthem, and how they might tackle the issues together.In addition to solving neighborhood problems withneighborhood-driven solutions, study circles can

link residents to services and supports;

provide information about neighborhoodresources;

build bridges among residents and with otherstakeholders (law enforcement, community-basedorganizations, churches, civic clubs); and

help build confidence, ownership, pride, andleadership capacity in neighborhood residents.

Contact:Study Circles Resource CenterPO Box 203Pomfret, CT 06258860-928-2616860-928-3713 (fax)www.studycircle.orgscrc@studycircle.org

The Idea in Practice

Residents from two diverse areas of Indianapolis,Indiana, have piloted the concept of study circles—called Family Circles in Indianapolis — to helpparticipants become better connected to each otherand to services and resources they need. Residentsare invited to come to a gathering to talk about aparticular subject. A total of seven Family Circles(several in each area of the city) have been hosted bytwo organizations. Holding several circles in eacharea helps to create a critical mass for change, andbroadens the connections across several neighbor-hoods. One set of circles — including a group ofyouths—was held and hosted in a public-housingcommunity, while the other gathered participantsthrough a community center host. The results of thesetwo groups of Family Circle pilots have encouragedthe city to plan for more in the future.

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A creative mix of informal and formal conversations about outreach strategies for families can beheld in familiar places such as child care centers, family resource centers, and churches. Typically,families share a meal while children are cared for. Holding dialogues with families helps to achieveseveral goals: to learn about the skills, gifts, and talents that families have; to learn what is impor-tant to families, what changes they want in their lives and in their neighborhoods, and how theycan be involved in creating change; and to exchange perspectives, find a shared vision, and developstrategies for collaboration. Dialogues with families emphasize the similarities between people andthus challenge racial, class, and educational barriers.

Community asset mapping is an excellent vehicle for resident empowerment. Residents are trained toreach out to families and to search for their strengths, talents, resources, and skills. As the processunfolds, deficit perceptions that residents may have about themselves tend to shift, creatingpathways for neighborhood transformation. Door-to-door canvassing, a common marketing-researchdevice, is another way to reach out to neighborhood families and engage them in communityprojects. Residents are trained in communication and interview techniques and carry a “tool bag”of useful information to help connect families to resources.

Community facilitators, also called community organizers, help to start a dialogue and involvefamilies in envisioning the kinds of changes and future they want for themselves and theirneighborhood. Although facilitators are often hired from outside the community, they shouldhave experience in engaging residents in a planning process.

Neighborhood coordinators, also called neighborhood links, are residents who have been hiredbecause they are trusted natural helpers in the neighborhood. They have a broad range ofroles, from linking families to needed services, to providing safe homes for children andyouth, to organizing block activities, to constituency building for family rights and neighbor-hood safety, to acting as city council family advocates. They know the families on their block,and they have the trust of community residents.

Community outreach workers are excellent bridge builders and are usually hired by community-based organizations for specific purposes, such as finding families to participate in certainprograms. Community outreach workers are most successful when they are hired from withinthe community and are assigned a specific target area, so that they can build long-termrelationships with families.

Caring residents and natural helpers can be found throughout every neighborhood. They are theessential people who care deeply for children and families and are willing to go to great lengthsto help others. Natural helpers mobilize resources and organize informal helping networksthat may lead to family organizations over time. They are especially good at approaching thehardest to reach. In order to be more effective in caring for families, natural helpers needaccess to resources and quality supports.

a CREATIVE mix

242424

Family Circles in Indianapolis have producedseveral positive outcomes:

Residents built friendships with each other.

Younger participants learned about local historyand culture from older residents.

People found others who cared about the sameissues.

Neighbors felt ownership for and pride in takingon new projects to improve their own lives.

Participants realized they had skills to offer.

New potential neighborhood leaders and follow-ers emerged.

Neighborhood residents were able to connectwith services and supports they hadn’t realizedexisted.

Neighborhood facilitators were trained.

In Indianapolis, facilitation is done by a team oftwo: One is a neighbor, trained in facilitation skillsprior to the beginning of the Family Circle; theother is a “resource broker,” usually from the hostorganization, able to help connect participants toresources they need, take notes, and attend to thedetails of organizing the circle.

The Family Circle concept has shown suchpromise that the mayor’s office and a broad range ofstakeholders expanded the circles throughout the city,in time for a late fall Summit on Family Strengthening.The information gathered from the Family Circleswill provide the basis for further discussion aboutmoving ahead with a framework for achieving specificresults after the summit.

Contact:Tony Macklin, Director of Community Initiatives Central Indiana Community Foundation615 N. Alabama Street, Suite 119Indianapolis, IN 46204317-634-2423317-637-6402 (fax)tonym@cicf.org

Des Moines Neighborhood Circles

In Des Moines, a Making Connections site, a group of12 residents in the near Northside neighborhoodcame together to pilot a neighborhood circle. Madeup of about equal numbers of men and women,African-Americans and whites, the group met at theNeighborhood Finance Center to identify whatcould be done to improve their neighborhood. Eachgroup meeting began with a social time around ameal with parents and children; child care was thenprovided while the parents met.

At the end of the four-week period, participantsidentified three priority needs they wanted to pur-sue: (1) more structured and supervised youth activi-ties, especially at one particular park in the summer;(2) a parent resource center that can provide daycare and sick-child care; and (3) a better list ofresources and services available to residents, espe-cially for newcomers to the neighborhood. In addi-tion, participants started specific projects: they begana program to help neighbors clean up their yards,they joined efforts already under way to secure agrocery store for the neighborhood, and they pressedthe city to clean up vacant lots in the neighborhood.

Some of the participants had initially been skep-tical about the value of the neighborhood circlebecause they had seen too many projects come andgo without any lasting results. But by the end of theprocess, all the participants gave an enthusiasticendorsement of the program. Residents said they

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Experience with study circles suggests a number of lessons that may be useful to other communities:

One-to-one recruiting works best. Using personal recruitment — whether it be staff fromcommunity organizations or other residents or service providers who talk to residents — helpsattract residents, especially more isolated ones, to attend a study circle. As one participant putit: “I can go out and recruit, because once I’ve been through it, I can tell you about it.Besides, word of mouth has always been the best advertising anyway.”

Circles need supports. Circles require multiple types of supports such as stipends, food, andchild care. Residents in Indianapolis, for example, found that stipends worked to initiallyattract residents and especially youth to the Family Circles. Although it was not the stipendsthat kept residents coming to the meetings, they were an initial attraction.

Study circles work for both new and long-time residents. Participants noted that circles havevalue for long-time residents and newcomers. Both groups of residents discovered newresources that their families could use. Both groups met people they didn’t know. Even long-time residents noted surprise when they learned about programs for their children, the his-tory of their neighborhood, and the views of other neighbors.

Resident facilitators add value and build leadership. Indianapolis used co-facilitators for theirFamily Circles. A resident and a staff person from the host organization worked as a team.The resident served as the hands-on meeting facilitator to attend to the needs of the groupand to make sure that all voices were heard. The staff person coordinated the logistics ofmeetings, including taking notes, arranging child care and food, calling members who misseda meeting, etc. Participants liked the role of resident facilitators and felt it was empowering.

Study circles sustain momentum and generate action. Study circles create lots of enthusiasm andexcitement with residents. This requires sustained follow-up in order to take advantage of themomentum. In Indianapolis, a two-month lull between meetings meant that they had to goback and re-create the initial enthusiasm.

Study circles need provisions for non-English-speaking residents. Supporting residents whosefirst language is not English requires very specific supports such as translators. It calls for adifferent way to keep the process moving and a way for individuals to make their concernsknown. For example, Seattle used translators at study circle meetings. The language issuesforced the community team and the facilitators to do more preparation between meetings.This preparation helped many participants voice concerns to the study circle that otherwisemight have been neglected. Another option is to conduct single-language groups — forexample, one Latino, one Cambodian, and one Vietnamese — to ensure that all participantshave a voice and can read the meeting materials.

lessons LEARNED

made connections with each other, many for thefirst time, and learned about other activities goingon in the neighborhood. They also made newfriends. And most important, they came away withsome tangible activities that are improving condi-tions visibly in their neighborhood.

Contact: Kent NewmanWallace House Foundation756 16th StreetDes Moines, IA 50314515-243-7063

Seattle Study Circles

In Seattle, another Making Connections site, residentsand community leaders from two neighborhoods insouth Seattle came together to talk about how tomake things better for families and other residents.The two neighborhoods have a high concentrationof immigrant populations, with school children whospeak 93 different languages. Residents includeOromo, Cambodian, Somali, and Eritrean immi-grants as well as African Americans.

The goals of the study circles were to createlong-term relationships among residents, and learnabout family strengthening opportunities in the twoneighborhoods. The groups met monthly at com-munity centers and usually included dinner. Eachgroup had $25,000 with which to conduct familystrengthening projects of their choice. They begancooking and sewing classes for women in theEritrean community, they bought a van for theOromo community’s after-school program, theybegan a literacy program for Somalians who are notliterate in their first language, they started a parent-ing class in Vietnamese taught by a Vietnameseteacher who designed the class based on what theparents wanted to learn, and they established severalESL classes.

Contact:Kathy StrandProgram Consultant10041 6th Avenue, SWSeattle, WA 98146206-658-8342

Community Living Rooms

Residents in the culturally and racially diversePhillips neighborhood of Minneapolis are amongthe poorest in the state. They are often isolatedfrom the services and supports they need, and some-times isolated from their neighbors too. ButFreeport West, a community-building organizationin the neighborhood, has developed CommunityLiving Rooms (CLRs) to connect families to socialnetworks and to each other. Freeport West, foundedto help individuals, families, and neighborhoods, hasdemonstrated that residents are eager to make con-nections with each other to find advice, help, infor-mation, and support. The concept was fundedinitially by the McKnight Foundation; about 30CLRs operate now.

CLRs are informal gatherings where parents andresidents meet to engage in various activities andtalk about their lives. Often a meal is offered.Groups choose the topics, but the CLRs are also asubstitute source of “old-fashioned fence talking.”In the process of these gatherings, some supportgroups have begun to form—groups that are help-ing families find housing, child care, jobs, and otherresources.

Freeport West began CLRs by identifying nat-ural, usually informal, neighborhood leaders. Theseleaders become the “community guides” who hostand facilitate meetings. The guides receive a stipendfor hosting the group, providing refreshments, andparticipating in a peer support system. New guidesreceive support and assistance from coaches, who wereamong the earliest guides. The guides also provide

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advice to Freeport West on program direction, andhelp ensure that the staff have a close connection tothe neighborhoods.

Contact:Robert E. Smith, Executive DirectorFreeport West2219 Oakland Avenue SouthMinneapolis, MN 55404612-824-3040612-824-0379 (fax)

3. Outreach to Neighborhood Families

The Idea

The purposes of all outreach activities are to estab-lish trusting relationships with residents and toengage them in a concerted effort to build upontheir own strengths, thereby increasing the socialcapital available in their neighborhood for thewell-being of children and families. The goal is toensure that every family in the neighborhood is con-stantly reached, informed, invited, and encouragedto grow personally and become actively involved inneighborhood affairs.

Communities that have developed successfuloutreach strategies depend upon residents as well asprofessional staff who understand the relationshipsamong residents, the social fabric of the neighbor-hood, and the community culture. These peoplegenerally knock on doors, taking the time to connectwith and relate to families, whether that means shar-ing a meal or joining regular home and child careroutines. Residents are approached on their ownturf—in familiar and trusted places—and on theirown time. Outreach workers or lay persons priori-tize family needs, listening to parent concerns andoffering information while also taking time to playwith young children and engage older youth. Once aconnection has been made, family members areencouraged to come to a gathering and participate

in a series of open-ended dialogues where residentscan shape their own concerns and plans.

Staff members from a community organization inAlbuquerque, New Mexico, launched an outreach effortby knocking on doors throughout the neighborhood andasking, “How can we help you?” They visited familiesseveral times, developed relationships with them, and, inthe process, established trust. As a result, eight familiescame together to talk about their concerns, and through aprocess of lengthy discussions, they developed a preschoolprogram that allowed them to work cooperatively to helpset program policies, guidelines, and goals. — Maria

Chavez, advocate, Albuquerque

Outreach strategies generally involve a mix ofinformal and formal approaches. Informal outreachis initiated by neighbors who are interested in help-ing children and making the neighborhood safer.These informal efforts often evolve into full orga-nizing efforts led by residents. Formal outreach usu-ally begins with a set of goals, defined geographicalboundaries, trained outreach volunteers or hiredworkers, a specific set of activities, a timetable inwhich to carry them out, and tools for collecting dataand tracking results. Often, the purpose of formaloutreach is to win the trust and establish programcredibility with families. When it succeeds, familiesthemselves informally carry on the outreach byinforming and inviting others to participate. This“grapevine” effect is one of the most powerful ways toget families involved in programs and neighborhoodactivities. Generic examples of neighborhood out-reach strategies are described in the box on page 23.

What to Look Out For

Whether one or one hundred families have beencontacted in a particular neighborhood, the realwork begins with sustaining and nurturing new rela-tionships. For example, if information and data aresolicited from residents and later tabulated to get a

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clearer picture of neighborhood needs and assets,then results should be shared with every participant:

If families express a desire to help, then opportu-nities should be made available quickly.

If families request help and are connected toresources, then someone should follow up to findout if the recommended resources were useful.

If some parents are not ready to get involved,they should be kept informed of developmentsand should also understand that their participa-tion is welcome at any time.

The Idea in Practice

In the Belmont neighborhood of Washington, D.C.,gunshots, violence, and drug dealing were routine inin 1991. The situation reached a crisis after a non-fatal shooting that involved two young teens. ValerieGibson, the mother of the boy who fired the gun,was horrified. She reached out to her friend, RitaBright, who shared her anxiety about the number ofyoung boys in the neighborhood who were involvedin dangerous and illegal activities. Not only were theboys destroying their own lives, the women realized,but they had also become a threat to their youngerbrothers. Valerie Gibson and Rita Bright proceededto organize an unparalleled effort to reach the youngboys involved in the violence—by involving theirmothers first.

They began by following the young men on theirroutes through the neighborhood, in order to findout both where they lived and where they were sell-ing drugs. The two women talked and prayed withother mothers, many of whom were not ready toaccept the fact that their sons were involved in thedrug trade. Slowly, they persuaded other mothers tojoin them, if for no other reason than to find out thetruth about their sons.

A number of these concerned women soonformed a support group called Mothers Against

Violent Acts (MAVA). They knew that “lock-ups”and “put-outs” were not the answer to violence, andthat in order to save their younger sons, they had tosave their older brothers first. Over the next fewyears, MAVA members stood on corners with theyoung men and prayed for them to turn their livesaround. They also handed out fliers telling the drugpurchasers to stop endangering their sons. Thewomen continued to pray, took down license platenumbers, and eventually helped to chase the drugpurchasers out of their neighborhood.

As a result of their mothers’ persistence, 20 ofthe young men ultimately created their own group,My Brother-Big Brother, dedicating themselves tobeing positive role models for their younger broth-ers. The young men planned the program, set theirown rules, and began working with and tutoringtheir siblings. A half-dozen of the young men wentback to school. Eight of them are now part of a pro-ject called PEERS (Positive Experiences EstablishingResponsible Students), and many more want tobecome mentors. Rita Bright has recently estab-lished the Belmont Community Care Center toaddress the needs of young men and their families inthe area.

We are successful with the young men because we stick bythem if they are trying to change. We recruit their leadersfirst. They define and control their work; they make theirown rules on how they are going to operate. Now theyhave responsibility and respect. All of our mothers are soproud to see their boys tutoring their younger brothers andbeing leaders in the neighborhood. We are hosting a“Cinderfella Ball” to celebrate their contributions.—Rita

Bright, MAVA, Washington, D.C.

Cosntact: Rita Bright Mothers Against Violent Acts2425 Fourteenth Street, NWWashington, DC 20009202-667-1477 or 202-745-6337 202-232-1014 (fax)

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In Los Medanosonas, a neighborhood in SanFrancisco’s East Bay, drive-by shootings and drugtrafficking were common. And in Port Chicago,families were isolated from one another. ResidentLilya Valladolid made a difference in her commu-nity when she decided to reach out and engage resi-dents in both neighborhoods.

In Los Medanosonas, families live in apartmentsprimarily owned by the Housing Authority. As themother of a young son, Lilya Valladolid believedthat most parents, afraid to send their children outto play, wanted to put an end to the frequentdrive-by shootings. Nevertheless, getting people tocome to one meeting with the police was difficult,and getting them to keep coming required persistenceand creativity. She offered incentives to participatingfamilies. They earned stars that they could save andtrade in for trips to cultural events and entertain-ment. Although she knew that some parents camejust for the incentives, others came because theycared about improving the neighborhood.

After six months of working with police, the par-ents developed a neighborhood watch program.They now serve as block captains, calling in licenseplates and reporting suspicious activities. Some ofthe parents lobbied successfully for fences, a recre-ation center, and even a mentoring program to helpkeep young people safe and out of trouble. Policealso agreed to reassign an officer to patrol LosMedanosonas regularly rather than sending an officeronly after receiving a call. As a result of the partner-ship between parents and the police, there has notbeen a drive-by shooting in Los Medanosonas sinceJanuary 1998.

Lilya Valladolid used a different outreachapproach in Port Chicago, where more families arehomeowners. She went door to door, listening toresidents talk about the changes they desired for theneighborhood and how they believed that thosechanges should take place. “The parents were not

complacent, but they did not know their neighbors.And trust was a real problem,” she says.

In addition to organizing ESL classes, she heldseminars twice a week on topics such as health, rela-tionships, schools, and gangs. Parents could bringtheir children, and refreshments were available. Asparents got to know each other and began discussingissues and solutions, they formed a network withtheir own officers and began working in partnershipwith a local Family Stress Center to solve problemsthat threatened the well-being of Port Chicago’schildren and families.

Parents always have ideas about how things could change,especially about how they can help and how others can helpthem. Don’t give up. Keep going, and try different strate-gies. Work with them. Don’t do it for them. People cando a lot more for you than you can do for them. Be part-ners.—Lilya Valladolid, Family Support, Oakland

Contact: Lilya ValladolidPO Box 5294 Oakland, CA 94565925-427-7741 lilyastrans@cs.com

4. Family Recreation, Education, and

Social Activities

The Idea

Sometimes families are more likely to come topicnics or street festivals—instead of communitymeetings—because they are fun and offer a socialoutlet. Consequently, neighborhood-based recre-ation, education, and cultural activities can provideuseful opportunities for engaging and mobilizingfamilies while simultaneously achieving importantfamily and neighborhood development goals.Organizers can use these events to recruit familiesfor a longer term effort to plan a community agendaaround family needs.

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Social and recreational activities build a sense ofbelonging among families in a community and offerresidents opportunities to relax with their children,have fun with other families, and expand social sup-port networks. Social activities also can strengthenfamily cultural identity and ethnic pride, and multi-cultural events help bridge understanding amongdiverse groups of families. These activities mightinclude potluck dinners, holiday celebrations, sportsevents, craft nights, cultural festivals, movie andpizza nights, picnics, special group trips, familynights out, camping, fashion shows, and bingo games.Families that take leadership roles in developingthese activities have the opportunity to learn event-planning and organizational skills.

Hosting adult educational activities is anothermeans of engaging residents, especially when childcare is provided. Educational activities strengthenparents’ self esteem—a basic ingredient for effectiveparenting, personal growth, and increased employ-ment skills. Activities might include reading clubs,family literacy classes, ethnic cooking, stress man-agement, yoga, or fitness and aerobics, as well assafety and first aid, GED, AIDS awareness, drivereducation, career development, financial manage-ment, business planning, computer literacy, andconflict resolution and mediation.

Recreation and social activities designed specifi-cally for children and youth are also a good way toattract family members. Activities can be organizedaround parents and youth, such as theater clubs,sports teams, support groups, rap groups, art ormural projects, leadership training, computerclasses, science projects, peer mentoring, martialarts, dance and aerobics, or entrepreneurial skillsworkshops. All provide ways to engage family membersin building valuable skills and capacities to improvefamily life in a neighborhood.

What to Look Out For

It is important to involve residents in the planningand execution of any group activity designed tobring them together. When staff organize activitieswithout involving families in their planning, a learn-ing opportunity is lost; too often, when paid staffleave the neighborhood, the activity disappearsalong with them. Including children and families inplanning and implementing activities is a powerfulleadership learning tool and is a way to build inter-generational ownership for community programs. Iteliminates reliance on outside “experts” and createseconomic opportunities for residents to becomepurveyors of their own services, as for instance whenparents are hired as staff and when neighborhoodbusinesses supply printing, copy services, food,cleaning, space, decorations, and other services.

The Idea in Practice

Theresa Morris, a resident of the St. Thomas-IrishChannel Consortium in New Orleans, realized thatthe key to enrolling more community residents in lit-eracy classes was to work with their children first. Shecreated story time for children ages six to ten, whichsoon began drawing large crowds. They listened tostories, learned how to apply for library cards andborrow books, and were invited on field trips. Shealso invited parents, many of whom participatedin the story hour and trips, and asked if they couldvolunteer in the program.

At first, many parents were embarrassed to admitthat they could not read or had never completedschool. As parents gradually grew more comfortablewith her, she asked them about their plans for thefuture and how they envisioned achieving thosegoals. Some parents wanted to know about servicesin the neighborhood, some needed help with filingdocuments, others were interested in learning howto use the Internet. “Literacy is in everything,” says

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Theresa Morris. “You need to have lots of programsunder your sleeve so you can be helpful.”

When parents request help with reading, sheenrolls them in the YMCA literacy program that ispart of the St. Thomas-Irish Channel Consortium,taking care to assess their reading skills so that theycan work at their own levels. Because achievinghigher reading levels and successfully obtaining ahigh school equivalency degree take a great deal oftime and determination, she sticks by her students,doing whatever it takes to help them to attain theirgoals. As parents have gained confidence, they havealso become more involved in their children’s edu-cation and the local schools. Last fall, several adultstudents produced their own book, called Parents asPositive Teachers, which provides information aboutlocal resources for children and families.

Contact: Theresa MorrisSt. Thomas-Irish Channel Consortium533 Josephine Street, Apartment BNew Orleans, LA 70130 504-523-1413 504-523-1424 (fax)

5. Neighborhood Projects, Mini-Grants, and

Parent Council Funds

The Idea

A powerful way for families to become involved in abroad, neighborhood-based family strengtheningagenda is to support projects originated by the resi-dents themselves, such as playground cleanups,block safety associations, weekly family evenings, jobbanks, shopping clubs, or after-school programs.Promoting the funding of resident-led projects andinvolving residents in raising funds to support themis another effective strategy for engaging residentsand building their capacity for leadership. Parentswho are already organized into parent councils, parent

advisory groups, and neighborhood associations maywant funds to help promote and expand their advocacyand leadership efforts. Youth will need access toscholarships, and residents will require revolvingloans to support their micro-enterprises.

What to Look Out For

Although families usually have a wealth of creativeideas and projects that they would like to work on,they rarely have access to the necessary tools, infor-mation, technical support, and funding. Smallgroups of concerned neighbors simply do not havethe resources that well-established community andcounty agencies have. To build residents’ capacity toparticipate in and sustain a neighborhood agendaover time, some residents will need help in learninghow to set clear goals and priorities, develop imple-mentation plans and timelines, write grant propos-als, prepare and monitor budgets, evaluate results,prepare reports, and develop management skills.

The Idea in Practice

Residents from Cleveland Arms, Hilltop Village,Moncrieff Village, Washington Heights, and PalmTerrace housing communities in Jacksonville,Florida, were invited to apply to a Call for GreatIdeas, a mini-grant program sponsored byJacksonville’s Community Partnership for theProtection of Children. The partnership is a col-laborative initiative funded in part by the EdnaMcConnell Clark Foundation and the FloridaDepartment of Children and Families. The Call forGreat Ideas plan asked for projects that would helpensure that all children are safe by reducing stress infamilies and thereby reducing the potential for childabuse and neglect as well as domestic violence. Anyresident could apply by completing a simple grantapplication. A local agency acted as the pass-throughagent, and the only requirement was that projectsrevolve around making children safer and families

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stronger. Groups from the five communities gath-ered to generate ideas for projects and complete thegrant application. Residents prioritized their lists ofcreative ideas, submitted applications, and, ulti-mately, each community received a $5000 grant toimplement one of their projects, which ranged froma Friday Night Movie Fest to building a playgroundfor tots. Building upon the success of the first year,the foundation doubled the grant funding for thesecond year of the project. Residents not onlylearned many valuable skills through the applicationprocess, but they proved fully capable of executingtheir plans and engaging a wider range of parents,youth, and children in the process.

Contact: Al Walker, Project Director, CoordinatorJacksonville Community Partnership for the

Protection of Children921 N. Davis Street, Building B, Suite 360AJacksonville, FL 32209 904-798-4406904-798-4419 (fax)

B . F A M I L Y - F R I E N D L Y P L A C E S

Traditionally, families could always go to the homeof a caring neighbor or to their place of worship forhelp and support. Socioeconomic, political, andenvironmental forces have eroded families’ naturalsupport networks, however, and there is a great needfor places in the community that restore, strengthen,and sustain the fabric of family and neighborhoodlife. Family-friendly places, therefore, are locationsin neighborhoods whose overall aim is to enhancethe family’s ability to function optimally and to pro-mote personal growth. In essence, a family-friendlyplace is any location in the community that wel-comes, nurtures, and supports families through accessto a wide array of concrete services and supports.

Family-friendly places offer family members asafe gathering place where they do not have todemonstrate a deficit in order to access the resourcesthey desire. They are usually drop-in sites whereparents can meet with other parents while childrenplay safely, where families can expand their socialnetworks, and where parents can exchange valuableinformation and resources. They are places wherefamilies can practice a range of skills, including lead-ership in personal, family, employment, and com-munity affairs.

The following examples of family-friendly placeshave been arranged into three categories: (1) schools,preschools, and child care facilities; (2) communitycenters and family resource centers; and (3) faith com-munities, civic clubs, and neighborhood associations.

Family-friendly places

welcome all families in the neighborhood;

nurture parent and caretaker capacities to carewell for children;

support family participation at all levels ofdecision-making;

combine a continuum of services and supportsfor individual families that includes promotionand prevention activities and access to treatmentservices when needed;

promote culturally relevant activities for familiesand dialogue among different cultures;

provide child care and youth development activitieswhile parents learn or practice leadership skills;

offer emergency supports twenty-four hours perday, seven days per week;

involve natural helpers as partners and provideongoing support for their efforts;

provide opportunities for social networking andintergenerational learning;

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recognize that fun should be a regular part ofactivities;

support parent-led initiatives by providing space,staff, and resources;

are open days and evenings on weekdays, andpart time on weekends;

allow families to drop in any time without anappointment;

use a collaborative model to create and makeaccessible a rich array of resources to families;and

provide on-site employment opportunities forparticipants.

1. Schools, Preschools, and Child Care Facilities

The Idea

Schools and child care facilities are among the mosteffective vehicles for family development activities.Parents can be involved in their children’s educationin some or all of the following ways: as teachers, asschool supporters, as advocates, and as decision-makers. As teachers, parents teach their toddlers theskills they will need to start school and be preparedto learn; parents read to children and help themwith homework, science fair projects, and specialreports. Some schools help parents become goodteachers at home through special parenting classes,skill-building sessions, and informal events thatbuild their confidence.

As school supporters, parents attend parent-teacherconferences, watch their children perform in schoolevents, join the PTA or PTO, work in the classroom,tutor students, or help supervise field trips. They getinvolved in what is happening at their children’sschools, sending a signal to their children thatschool is important and their children are important.This raises children’s confidence and inspires them

to work hard in school. Some schools ask parents tosign a contract at the beginning of the school yearwhere they agree, for example, to attend at least twoparent-teacher conferences and volunteer at least 18hours in the school during the year.

As advocates, parents speak for and act on behalfof their children. Parents may act as advocates fortheir own children or they may act for all childrenin their school community, as when they insist thatstudents not be split into high and low tracks.Several communities are trying to help parentsbecome more effective advocates through workshopsand parent-mentoring programs. The Right QuestionProject in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example,trains parents to ask teachers and other school offi-cials about their child’s progress in school and totake specific action steps if they don’t get goodanswers. Another example is found in New YorkCity where ACORN, (the Association for CommunityReform Now) helped parents to pressure commu-nity school districts to open smaller schools, endstudent tracking, make needed repairs, and dividefunds fairly among students. As a result, two newelementary schools were opened, and committees ofparents and teachers now make the hiring decisionsfor school directors and teaching staff.

The final level of parent involvement is as

decision-makers. Beyond just making recommenda-tions, influencing a program, or managing a smallschool fund, some schools give parents real decision-making authority. Some schools, for instance, allowparents to decide what program is best for theirchild and help develop their child’s personal learn-ing plan annually. In Chicago, elected local schoolcouncils—made up at least 50 percent of parents—at every public school in the city pick the principaland set the overall policies for the school. In thesecases, decisions are made jointly, and parents feel asense of ownership in what they have created fortheir children’s education.

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While there are many examples of communitieshelping parents act as teachers and supporters, fewerhelp parents become effective advocates and decision-makers. To fully utilize parents’ potential, schoolstaff need to view parents as experts about their ownchildren — with valuable knowledge and skills.Families need to feel entirely welcome at theirchild’s school at any time, and they need to beinvolved in everything from the school’s vision anddesign to its procedures and relationships with thewider community.

Communities can create family-friendly places inschools and child care centers, giving parents a spaceof their own to drop in, host activities, learn skills,and meet with other parents. Parents should beincluded in program design, invited to offer feed-back on educational and child care matters, andoffered ample opportunities to contribute to dailyeducational activities. Friendly schools and childcare centers should promote a practice of familieshelping families when situations call for extra sup-ports, like taking a tot to the day care center when anew baby is born, serving as a safe place for latchkeychildren, or mentoring an adolescent who is failing agrade. They should provide families with access tosocial services, adult education, family counseling,parent-child activities, parenting skills sessions, andparent support groups. When parents are involvedin their child’s education and development, every-one gains: children, the schools, parents, the neigh-borhood, and the broader community of taxpayers.

Opportunities for making schools and child carecenters more responsive to families include

funding a team of school-parent liaisons to reachout and establish meaningful links betweenparents and their children’s schools;

supporting parents’ own advocacy efforts tocreate friendlier environments;

creating a series of school or day care and homedialogues;

providing PTAs with parent leadership trainingto increase parents’ effectiveness in communicatingwith teachers and advocating for children;

providing principals and teachers with opportuni-ties to visit and talk to peers who have successfullycreated home-school partnerships and haveturned their schools into family-friendly places;and

funding teacher-parent partnership projects.

After the workshop we went into classrooms, did somevolunteer work, and helped the teachers. It was morethan bulletin boards and grading papers; it was aboutfive-to-one contact with students who needed the extrapush or extra help. And teachers started to feel comfort-able with parents. Teachers were just as worried aboutparents being in the school as parents were worried aboutthe teachers. We started building relationships there,along with respect and trust.—Community Organizing and

Family Issues: A Progress Report from Interviews with Parent

Leaders, by Kris Smock, Northwestern University

What to Look Out For

Although neighborhood leaders can help to makeschools and child care centers the kinds of placesthat encourage activities that strengthen families anddevelop leadership skills, relationships betweenschool and home are generally poor. Many parentsreport feeling unwelcome at school and only relateto educators when they are notified about problemswith their children. Schools are often disconnectedfrom many families’ daily struggles and do not knowthe best way to develop partnerships with parents.Improving the relationship between home andschool requires substantial work as well as strategicinvestments.

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When parents in communities develop a sense of beingable to advocate for themselves, the interaction withschools as well as other community groups changessubstantially.— Luz Santana, Right Question Project,

Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Idea in Practice

The Valeska Hinton Early Childhood Center inPeoria, Illinois, was designed specifically to includeand support parents as partners in their children’seducation. While some schools seek parent involve-ment in order to improve their children’s education,the center encourages parents’ personal and profes-sional development by offering both day and eveningGED preparation, adult basic education, literacyclasses, job skills training, nutrition, first aid, andparenting classes. Parents may come to the centerwith their children on the school bus; parents alsohave lockers, a lounge, and a toy-lending library.Family support associates, who provide before- andafter-school child care, are the principal outreachworkers for the center, making home visits toencourage parent involvement and informing par-ents about what the center has to offer.

Contact: Patricia Kellogg, DirectorValeska Hinton Early Childhood Center800 West RB Garrett StreetPeoria, IL 61605309-672-6810 309-676-9831 (fax)

The Charter Oak School in West Hartford,Connecticut, is an example of a school-communitypartnership that has successfully involved parents intheir children’s schooling. In the late 1980s, some ofthe teachers in this school informed their principalthat in order to be effective at teaching, they neededcounselors to work with them, their students, andthe children’s families. The principal listened and by1991 had opened a family resource center in the

school — one of 60 such centers funded by theConnecticut Department of Education. The centerfirst opened in a small basement room of the school.Because of its popularity among parents, it wasmoved to a classroom and then later to a doubleclassroom, where it continues to be a large part ofthe school today. The center, staffed by a parenteducator, offers preschool activities, breakfasts,in-school and after-school activities for children andparents, play groups and home visits, ESL classes,and an orientation program for new families, manyof whom have only recently arrived in this countryand do not speak English.

You can’t blame parents for working to put food on thetable. If you want them to be involved, you need to be onthe phone with them constantly, giving them opportuni-ties. At first, parents may put up a wall between theschool and the family. But if a mother comes to a playgroup with her toddler, for example, it builds up her com-fort zone in the school. She’ll discuss things with the parenteducator, which builds a bridge for talking with theteachers and being present in the classroom and on fieldtrips.—Therese Horn, teacher, Charter Oak School

Contact: Peg Beecher, PrincipalCharter Oak School425 Oakwood Avenue West Hartford, CT 06110 860-233-8506

The Parent Services Project (PSP) sites operatein eight states and have a network of over 25,000families. One of the first, the Fairfax-San AnselmoChildren’s Center, a family-friendly child care cen-ter, was founded on the belief that child care is afamily matter. Since it opened in 1973, the centerhas worked conscientiously both to forge partner-ships with parents regarding the care of their chil-dren and to engage the entire family in the activitiesof the center. “We see ourselves as serving families,

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not just children,” says Lisa Lee, Associate Directorof the Fairfax PSP. “It is about respect. We believethat families should have the ultimate say about thecare of their children.”

Depending on the cultural mores of the families at thecenter, orientations can be meetings with formal presen-tations and questions and answers. At other PSP sites, wehave scavenger hunts that send parents into classroomsand meeting rooms, looking for items, opening up closets,looking at materials. We want parents to have a goodidea of what their children do, where they will be, whatelse goes on at the center, and how families can participatein the activities.—Lisa Lee, Fairfax PSP

PSP centers work intentionally to make familiesfeel at home, supported in their role as parents andfamily leaders, and valued as important members ofthe PSP community. Pictures of the children andtheir parents greet everyone who enters. When a fam-ily enrolls a child in the program, staff members taketime to learn what the family wants for their childand how they want to participate in the program.Registration forms are clear, respectful, and in thefamily’s own language. All parents have orientation.

To build bridges between parents and PSP cen-ters, staff members regularly ask themselves questions:

What strengths does each family bring?

How many times have you thanked a parent?Laughed with families?

How can we make it easy for parents to meeteach other?

How many opportunities do we offer for parentsand children to do things together?

Are we taking time to build relationships withparents and other family members?

PSP understands that parenting practices areculturally influenced. Therefore, staff members raise

issues with parents about racial, language, andcultural differences and work to build understandingamong families and between families and staff.Understanding that child care centers and familychild care homes often serve as the entry point forfamilies into the larger community, PSP sitesdevelop strong relations with other local organiza-tions and institutions. This way, parents can connecteasily to resources and opportunities.

Finally, parents play critical roles in their pro-grams —planning programs, determining priorities,evaluating programs, and setting policy. PSP pro-grams make sure that parents understand some ofthe larger issues that affect child care in general,such as the extreme shortage of qualified workers.

We strive to develop relationships of reciprocity. Weactively seek advice, assistance, and support from ourparents. We encourage parents to get involved and con-tribute time and skills to making their center or home awonderful place for their children. There is a genuinegive-and-take between families and staff. Both becometeachers and learners to each other.—Ethel Seiderman,

PSP founding director

The center provided a stable and safe environment for mychildren, allowing me to go to work and school and beokay with it, because I knew they were safe. My childrensaw that I participated in the center activities, and Ithink that this sets a good example for them for laterwhen they become adults and have to think about theirown children’s school and parent participation. It helpsbuild their own self-esteem.—Barbara, PSP parent

Contact: Lisa Lee, Associate Director Ethel Seiderman, Founding DirectorParent Services Project, Inc. 199 Porteous AvenueFairfax, CA 94930 415-454-1870415-454-1752 (fax)

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2. Community Centers and Family Resource Centers

The Idea

Family resource centers are family-friendly places bydefinition, as they seek to support parents and theirchildren in a variety of ways. When they firstappeared in the 1970s, family resource centers wereplaces where nonworking families could come forsocial gatherings, skills development, and informa-tion exchange. Since then, some of these centershave become more inclusive and supportive of work-ing parents, and have evolved from simple parentand child drop-in centers open during workinghours on weekdays, to centers that serve families allweek and include evening and Saturday activities.Most communities have at least one family resourcecenter, which may be located within a school,YMCA, Boys & Girls Club, or other community-based organization.

More recent models, built from the ground upwith the full involvement of parents, are far moreempowering than the earlier versions were, and theyprovide family access to promotion, prevention, andtreatment resources. Some very successful centers areplanned and operated as parent-led organizations.Over the years, some aspects of family resourcecenters have been adapted and applied with excellentresults to more traditional environments: healthclinics, child care centers, hospitals, churches, andcommunity centers. All of these settings hold incommon the basic premise that parenting is an essen-tial task and that parents deserve support in theirefforts.

What to Look Out For

Family resource centers that are shaped and run byneighborhood parents offer an effective vehicle forfamily empowerment and for building much-neededbridges between policymakers and neighborhoodresidents. However, developing a family center with

resident involvement requires building tremendoustrust between resident leaders and the organizationsthat agree to fund the centers—and this process cantake time. Funders should respect the process of res-ident decision-making and agree to abide by theirchoices. Moreover, shifting to a true partnershipwith families means that staff must commit to holdingrespectful and empowering dialogues with parents.

The Idea in Practice

Three family centers were developed in AlleghenyCounty, Pennsylvania, in 1994-1995 to improvechild outcomes in diverse communities within thecounty. County leaders, in partnership with theUniversity of Pittsburgh, set forth the broad goalsand principles for the initiative and created a centralorganization called Partnerships for FamilySupport (PFS) to provide technical assistance andadministrative support to each center. Each offers acore set of family support programs to foster opti-mal child development, including case managementservices, assessment, social and recreational activi-ties, and a program for teen moms who come to thecenter twice a week to learn about health, nutrition,and child development.

Community residents played a major role indesigning and operating the centers. With supportfrom PFS professionals, residents made decisionsabout whether to have a family support center, howa host agency for fiscal and personnel matters wouldbe selected, how staff would be hired, the location ofthe center, its days and hours of operation, and whatprograms and services the center should offer. Sixyears later, parent councils still make decisions aboutprograms and resources, and the centers are vitaland filled with community residents.

Instead of providing “training” to the residentleaders, PFS staff act as liaisons between the residents,funders, and other institutions and organizations.

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They also serve as “protectors” of the process andthe decisions of parents. In the words of the PFSdirector, “People have skills and gifts. They makedecisions every day. Partners don’t train partners—you work with them.”

Parents help administer the programs they design. Theyhelp with the school-age program; they help prepare thedinner we serve to families twice a week. If you walk intoany room at the center you see parents are working sideby side with staff. I share all decision-making with par-ents, except for some personnel issues. Parents shape theprogram and they work on the budget. They are involvedin everything at the center. The greatest influence parentshave had recently is getting the center to embrace theschool-age child. All three family centers were originallyfunded to serve children ages birth to three, and then weexpanded to birth to five. Our parents challenged this,because they wanted to address school-age children. Wepetitioned our funders and the restriction was lifted.

—Paulette Davis, director, Wilkinsburg Family Support

Center

Contact: Paulette Davis, DirectorWilkinsburg Family Support Center807 Wallace Avenue, Suite 205Pittsburgh, PA 15221412-871-7948412-871-7990 (fax)

3. Faith Communities, Civic Clubs, and

Neighborhood Associations

The Idea

Neighborhood churches and faith groups offer fami-lies not only spiritual guidance, but a host of othersupports as well. Neighborhood places of worshipembrace families in good times and in hard times,and families serve as natural supports to each other.When faith groups mobilize behind a cause, powerfulchanges can take place in the community; therefore,

places of worship are excellent places to engage in afamily strengthening and neighborhood transforma-tion agenda.

Neighborhood-based civic clubs and neighborhoodassociations are good sources of resident volunteersas well as vehicles for resident leadership develop-ment. Civic clubs and neighborhood associationsoften have members who have watched the neigh-borhood change over thirty, forty, even fifty or moreyears. These residents can provide valuable insightinto current efforts to improve conditions in theneighborhood, help bridge relationships with seniorcitizens, and support family outreach efforts.

What to Look Out For

Because faith communities, civic clubs, and neigh-borhood associations are often established commu-nity institutions, their leadership may be entrenchedin more traditional ways of viewing families andexercising power. Building relationships with thesegroups requires understanding their territories, hier-archies, and beliefs, as well as taking the time to finda common vision for family and neighborhoodchange. The payoff for such perseverance can be aset of secure commitments to help mobilize resi-dents in support of families in the neighborhood.

The Idea in Practice

The New Salem Baptist Church, in Columbus,Ohio, is an 83-year-old church that ministers to amixed-income congregation of nearly 3500. Churchprograms, which include full-service day care, alatchkey program, after-school activities, Bible studygroups for all ages, a community redevelopment pro-gram, a black college fair, a food pantry, and summerrecreational and job skills training programs, serveabout 1750 children and adults. Many of NewSalem’s programs represent cooperative efforts withsmall businesses and minority entrepreneurs, thepublic schools, and other churches in the Columbus

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area. “Our primary thrust is youth, but we are attunedto all family needs,” says Rev. Keith Troy.

Contact: Keith Troy, MinisterNew Salem Baptist Church 2956 Cleveland Avenue Columbus, OH 43224 614-267-2536

The Community Needs Council (CNC), theyouth arm of Chicago’s Logan Square Neighbor-hood Association, organized a basketball gamebetween Logan Square youth and adult communityleaders to celebrate the grand opening of a newsports center. The opening offered a chance for theyoung people to share their excitement with the com-munity and an opportunity to build relationshipsamong members of different community groups andorganizations. Celebrity guest players included thepastor of a local church, the parent coordinator froma local middle school, and two police officers fromthe 14th District of the police department. A mem-ber of the local Church Caucus refereed the game,and an alderman from the 35th ward joined thegroup for the ribbon cutting and half-time cere-mony. “It was a fun learning experience for theyouth,” said Arlene Martinez, youth leader and pres-ident of CNC. “We learned how to organize ourown events. For the adult players, it was a way ofuniting and working with the youth.” One of theadults commented, “Although I was a bit intimi-dated at first by the youths’ energy and enthusiasm,I am pleased to see that age and experience are stillvery valuable.”

Contact: Adida Perez, PresidentNancy Aardema, DirectorLogan Square Neighborhood Association3321 West Wrightwood StreetChicago, IL 60647 773-384-4370

The material on CNC was excerpted from The EagleNews, the Logan Square Neighborhood AssociationNewsletter, Fall 1999.

C . F A M I L Y L E A D E R S H I P D E V E L O P M E N T

Supporting residents in neighborhood transforma-tion efforts is important, but full participation incommunity decision-making requires building resi-dents’ capacity to take on leadership roles. MakingConnections site teams can help residents learn how tobe productive leaders, starting with their participa-tion in the planning phase of Making Connections andcontinuing through the implementation of pro-grams, policies, and supportive services. However,careful consideration must be given to how everyprogram strategy will simultaneously help to addressthe needs of families and build their potential forleadership in the neighborhood.

Every Making Connections neighborhood has anabundance of family leadership expressions, yet thatwealth may go unnoticed unless site teams make aneffort to discover them. Every contact with familiesshould yield new information on how families helpthemselves and others in their community. Thisneighborhood leadership wealth is the foundation offurther development, as well as the principal rootthat will sustain leadership efforts over time.

Signs of a Family Leader

A family leader in a community is someone who

uses his or her own resources to help a family inneed;

volunteers in family recreation and other socialactivities;

informs families about resources and helpsengage families in programs;

organizes child and youth activities to keep themsafe and off the streets;

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serves as a consultant or advisor for programdesign and implementation strategies;

joins a parent advocacy group and speaks onbehalf of children and families;

actively participates in his or her neighborhoodassociation;

attends PTA and other community meetings;

serves as a parent representative in neighborhoodgoverning boards;

recognizes the contributions and gifts of otherfamilies; and

keeps his or her own family as a priority.

Family leadership efforts in neighborhoods sel-dom receive the recognition and support that theydeserve, in part because leadership is primarily asso-ciated with money, power, titles, and positions, andin part because family development issues have notbeen viewed as central to community development.Making Connections neighborhoods will undoubtedlyhave highly talented leaders who have exercisedtheir leadership skills under circumstances that lackadequate support, validation, and resources.Therefore, supporting and enhancing indigenousfamily leadership is a top priority for MakingConnections. In the following pages, family leadershipdevelopment is discussed in terms of (1) parent lead-ership training and (2) family-focused communityorganizing and family advocacy.

1. Parent Leadership Training

The Idea

Leadership training attempts to build the knowledgebase and skills of indigenous neighborhood leaders.Group processes can accelerate the acquisition ofnew skills as participants teach and support eachother. Training can take the form of short-term

coaching assignments before a resident testifiesbefore the city council, or it can be a series of train-ing sessions on advocacy skills, action planning,communications strategies, public speaking, andgrant writing. Some communities provide one-on-one support for emerging leaders through a type ofmentoring program, while others organize exchangeswith family leaders from other communities.

Honor yourself now, where you have been, and the personyou have yet to become. When you talk to people, make itseem like you are sitting down and having coffee.Everyone has something to say that you can learn from.When you are in a tough situation, handle it with dignityand respect. Never take away anyone else’s dignity. Payattention to dynamics. Silence allows you to learn andunderstand where people are coming from. You can oftenget a lot more out of the situation if you observe.

People need to hear your opinions. Network. Peoplehave resources that can help you. I always bring someonealong. I listen. I have real conversations with people andget an understanding of what they want to do; then I addmy opinions. I keep these contacts in my mind for thefuture.

Pass the baton. Share your power. I stand behind myintegrity on these issues, but if I am not sharing thispower with others, then I am not leading. Share infor-mation, bring opportunities in front of the parents, and bewilling to step aside and let others take the baton.—Michelle

Gaither McDonald, co-director of the Hartford Parent

Network

Successful training efforts share some commoncharacteristics:

They are developed in response to a local need.

They include parents as trainers or co-facilitators.

They build on and validate parents’ strengths andleadership experiences.

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They help participants identify personal goalsand develop strategies for achieving them.

They include a variety of supports for participants,such as child care, scheduling, and transport.

They provide practical skills and step-by-stepprocesses for thinking about community goalsand how to achieve them.

They promote mutual support and collaborationamong parents as well as accountability forresults.

What to Look Out For

While any leadership training program can provideuseful information and skills, it will be far moreeffective if residents are involved in its planning andpreparation. Strategies for developing family leader-ship in Making Connections neighborhoods will bemost successful if local leaders first spend time lis-tening to and supporting residents’ own creative ideasbefore offering information and technical supports.

Furthermore, parent leadership training shouldaddress areas where opportunities for exercisingleadership are actually available. It does not makesense to train parents in board participation skills,for example, if organizations have not made room attheir board tables for community residents or if theavailable slots are minimal.

The Idea in Practice

The Urban Children’s Coalition (UCC) is asix-year-old nonprofit organization on the north-west side of Denver that works with families in needof support, many of whom have recently arrivedfrom Mexico. Nine family advocates work with indi-vidual families who have been referred by one of 18schools in their area. Family advocates visit familiesand partner with them to address whatever concernsand needs they have.

When UCC had the opportunity to nominatesome parents to serve on the Collaborative Councilof the 9th District, a community collaborative inDenver, family advocates provided the bridge toeffective membership on the council. First, however,they had to

consider the responsibilities that families werecurrently managing;

review the expectations and demands that mem-bership in the council would place on parent rep-resentatives;

identify the hurdles or barriers to parent partici-pation; and

plan an intensive system to recruit, train, andsupport each parent representative who joinedthe council.

UCC staff recognized that participation in thecouncil could not jeopardize parents’ abilities to ful-fill their day-to-day obligations. Effective parentparticipation would necessitate child care, food forchildren at mealtimes, transportation to and fromthe meetings, and perhaps a stipend. After examiningwhat families would realistically have to overcome inorder to participate in the Collaborative Council,UCC staff took the following steps:

Invitations were sent to parents who had workedwith a family advocate from the program.

Anyone who expressed interest received moreinformation about the expectations of Councilmembers.

A retreat was held for those parents who were stillinterested in joining, to discuss the following issues:

the purpose and operations of the council;

their role on the council;

the funding stream that supports the council;

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issues and concerns that parents want thecouncil to know about; and

ways that UCC staff could support the parents’involvement.

Once parents had joined the council, familyadvocates picked parents up after meetings, tookthem home, and discussed their thoughts about themeeting as well as their expectations about upcomingones. Family advocates answered parents’ questions,listened to their ideas and concerns, and sometimesalso attended meetings, providing translation serviceswhen necessary.

As a result of this approach to supporting parentinvolvement in the District 9 Collaborative Council,parents have become much more active and haveraised their expectations about what needs to changein the community. Two have become members of theUrban Children’s Coalition Board. Parents’ comfortspeaking in public, their fluency with English, andtheir willingness to speak up on behalf of their chil-dren at school has grown dramatically. One District 9councilmember has testified before the Denver CityCouncil regarding several issues identified by theparents, particularly the high cost of family housing.

Contact:Enrique Orozco, Program ManagerUrban Children’s Coalition5100 Lincoln StreetDenver, CO 80216303-308-1859303-308-1861 (fax)

The rhetoric of past community development initiativestended toward telling residents that they hadopportunities—but not giving them the resources theyneeded to take advantage of those opportunities—or giv-ing resources without providing an understanding ofopportunities to put them to use. To truly empower resi-dents, you need to give them resources, skills, knowledge,and the opportunities to apply them.—Mustapha Abdul

Salaam, community leader, New Haven, Connecticut

2. Family-Focused Community Organizing and

Family Advocacy

The Idea

In recent years, largely because of federal programsthat mandate parental involvement, parents havebeen recruited to represent family voices on a numberof boards and in commissions, community groups,and organizations. However, many parents do nothave the skills to step into leadership roles that mayrequire them to have a voice in public policy, partici-pate in decision-making, and lead community changeactivities for families.

In response, hundreds of parent-led groups haveemerged to organize parents at the neighborhood,county, and state levels. Distinctions between thesegroups are largely based on the key issues that galva-nize participants (child care, schools, special needschildren, drunk driving, or neighborhood safety), aswell as on whether they work at local or state levels.Their focus aside, these groups share the belief thatfamilies are the building blocks of communities, andthat parents and other family members are powerful—if often overlooked—sources of community lead-ership. Their common goal is to build the leadershipcapacity of parents in order to effect change in theschools and in their community. Working from theprinciple that building strong families is key tobuilding strong communities, family-focused orga-nizing and family advocacy efforts provide leadershipskills that link personal, family, and communitydevelopment.

The Idea in Practice

Community Organizing and Family Issues(COFI) offers leadership training in which COFIstaff work in partnership with a local communityorganization to help bring parents into decision-making roles within their community. Developed in1994 by long-time labor and political organizerEllen Schumer, COFI grew out of frustration with

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traditional organizing approaches that rarely addressedissues that affect families.

Here’s how COFI works: COFI staff memberstrain an organizer from the community organiza-tion, who in turn invites families to participate in along-term effort to improve their neighborhood.Those who sign up attend five to six workshops overtwo to three weeks that focus on setting personal,family, and community goals. This process, whichmany parents have never experienced before, allowsparents to articulate their dreams for themselves andfor their families; sharing their visions with eight tofifteen other group members creates an atmosphereof mutual wisdom and support. As an outgrowth ofthe training, participants form parent action teamsto improve conditions within their own neighbor-hoods. Parents work with the organizer and COFIstaff to map their strategies and take concrete actionover the next three to six months. Typical projectsinclude lobbying for school uniforms; beginning aparent-mentoring program; opening a familyresource center at the school; organizing a parentsafety patrol; and starting ESL, GED, or computerclasses in the community.

Parents report gaining a clearer vision aboutwhat is important to them and their families. Takingaction in pursuit of personal and community goalsreinforces their sense of their own capacity to effectchange. As a result, parents often return to school,get jobs, and become leaders at school, on their block,or in a community organization. Within the year,many parents go on to Phase II of COFI training,during which they develop and conduct a neighbor-hood needs assessment to assist in long-term planningfor their neighborhood.

COFI provides an effective means for activatingsmall groups of parents across a neighborhood. Overthe course of two to three years, COFI-trained parentsbecome neighborhood activists working to improveconditions for children and families in schools, childcare centers, in the parks, and in libraries. COFIparents then become the trainers for the next cohortof interested parents.

Contact: Ellen Schumer, Executive DirectorCommunity Organizing and Family Issues954 W. Washington StreetChicago, IL 60607312-226-5141312-226-5144 (fax)

We used to have a drug-infested neighborhood. I felt wecould stop it, that we could break the cycle. We did breakthe cycle. Before I got parent leadership training, I wantedto make changes, but I didn’t understand the system orhow to navigate it. I did not know how to get the systemto be more responsive to my needs, and now I do.—Anna

Green, Spring Lake, North Carolina

Parents United for Child Care (PUCC) began inthe early 1990s when a group of Boston parentsbegan meeting informally to discuss their child careneeds. Their mission is not only to expand the avail-ability of affordable, quality child care (particularlyin inner-city neighborhoods in Massachusetts), butalso to add a strong parent voice to the publicdebates over child care and family policies in thestate. PUCC has grown into a grass-roots, multi-racial organization of 2000 low- and moderate-income parents. Its Leadership DevelopmentProgram trains parents to become neighborhoodleaders in terms of the child care needs in theirneighborhoods. All PUCC activities are directed atorganizing parents to become effective advocates forthemselves and for their children.

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We are working and nonworking parents from many dif-ferent rungs on the socioeconomic ladder, united aroundour mutual concern for child care. We come from everyneighborhood in Boston and many communities aroundthe state. We are trying to cope with busy, often disjointedschedules, and we need affordable, high-quality child care.By uniting our hands, we are connected to one another;uniting our voices, we are louder; uniting our neighbor-hoods, we are more powerful.—Mark Smith, PUCC

Contact: Mark Smith, Director for Community OrganizingParents United for Child Care30 Winter StreetBoston, MA 02108617-542-1515617-426-8288 (fax)

D . P U T T I N G I T A L L T O G E T H E R

The strategies, tools, and examples described in thisguide illustrate just a few of the many creative possi-bilities for resident engagement and parent leader-ship in Making Connections neighborhoods.Experience suggests that a combination of these andother approaches is necessary to promote real familyinvolvement in meeting basic needs and collectiveaction activities.

The Idea in Practice

The Family Support Network (FSN) was createdby a Bothell, Washington, mother on welfare whofound that the formal social service system could notmeet all of her needs or those of her four children.Her needs reflected those that most families have forstability: time together, child care while she lookedfor work, a plumber to fix a leaky faucet, haircuts forher children. Using an asset-based communitydevelopment approach, she organized her neighborsinto a network that now has 150 volunteers who

have contributed more than 50,000 hours in the pastfive years to help their neighbors in need. Today,FSN is a grass-roots operation that seeks to create anetwork of connections among neighbors, unfet-tered by bureaucracy, politics, religious doctrine,race, or socioeconomic status.

The network seeks to improve the lives of every-one involved—giver and receiver alike. Some mem-bers have identified specific issues affecting theirneighbors and have spearheaded efforts to addressthem: creating a network of safe havens for victimsof domestic violence or identifying host families indifferent neighborhoods to assist teenagers who areescaping gangs. Others have organized neighborhoodgatherings, special events, and family fun activities.

The FSN model includes specific roles andresponsibilities:

Community connectors are residents who registervolunteers and match needs and resources to spe-cific requests.

Community weavers encourage families to getinvolved in the network and connect families tomore formal resources when needed. They areusually family support workers in the schools,volunteer coordinators in agencies and churches,or corporate employee assistance program man-agers who have been tasked to participate in thenetwork.

Family advocates provide direct services and sup-ports: child care, transportation, or the supervisionof visits with children in foster care. All participatein a certification training program where theylearn about the causes of community problems,the characteristics of healthy communities, andhow to weave a web of community support.

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Good neighbors are the volunteers who lend ahelping hand from time to time or as needed forspecific projects. A good neighbor may be a hair-dresser, a carpenter, a VCR repairman, a lawyer,or a teacher who can tutor. Others may take in achild or a whole family, visit a senior shut-in, oradvocate for a child with special needs. Goodneighbors may receive assistance when their ownneeds arise.

Good friends are professionals — for instance,lawyers and doctors—who are willing to providepro bono services for individual families.

FSN partners are individuals, community organi-zations, agencies, and businesses who contributecash, time, expertise, services, and equipment.For example, some partners have developed adatabase and website for the network.

The FSN model also includes a complex volun-teer management and tracking database, CommunityWeaver Software, that contains material and humanresources data-linked and catalogued according tothe abilities, assets, and expertise of each volunteerin the network. Requests for assistance come to acommunity connector (or community weaver) whoscreens each request and searches the database tofind a family advocate or good neighbor who canfulfill the request. A single request may containseveral tasks. Results are reported back to the com-munity connector, who keeps an activity log onevery match. All information is compiled in a reporton the quantity and quality of network services.

With a small grant from the Institute for a CivilSociety, FSN is being replicated in two other com-munities: Cortez, Colorado, and Lewiston, Idaho.Family Support Network International (FSNI) canprovide training and technical assistance to interestedcommunities. The Community Weaver Software

could be a useful tool in Making Connections sites tohelp residents identify, organize, and use assets;track needs; and connect families to resources andsupport.

Contact: Cheryl HoneyFamily Support Network International14316 75th Avenue, NE Bothell, WA 98011800-529-2294 425-820-2224

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resources

The following organizations provide assistance andinformation on resident engagement strategies:

Family Support America, formerly the FamilyResource Coalition of America, is an alliance of peopleand organizations convinced that in order to do thebest we can by our nation’s children, we need tosupport and strengthen America’s families and com-munities. Since 1981, Family Support America hasbeen helping the family support movement grow. Itoffers information, resources, and support on legis-lation and policy.

Contact:Family Support America20 N. Wacker Drive, Suite 1100Chicago, IL 60606312-338-0900312-338-1522 (fax)www.frca.org

Family Support Network is a network of responsi-ble citizens who are willing to exchange services andsupports, both locally and nationwide. Familiesserve in a variety of ways, providing meals toshut-ins and respite to those in need. Communitymembers complete a two-part, 16-hour certificationtraining where they learn leadership, communitybuilding, team building, resource pooling, and peersupport skills. They also learn what is happening atthe local and state level in the areas of family preser-vation and family support.

Contact:Family Support Network21902 Second Avenue WestBothell, WA 98021800-529-2294 425-487-4009www.familynetwork.org wecare@familynetwork.org

Family Voices is a national grass-roots organizationthat speaks on behalf of children with special healthcare needs. Founded by parents who developednational and state family networks and organizationsto improve the health and education systems thatserve their children, Family Voices’ goal is to helpshape national, state, and local health care policy andpractice in private and public health care systems by

supporting a national network of volunteerregional and state coordinators who provideinformation to families and policymakers;

serving as a clearinghouse to keep membersinformed about health care issues; and

forming partnerships with professionals andother state and national organizations to makesure the voices of families are heard.

Family Voices is a partner with Family SupportAmerica in disseminating guidelines for healthsupervision of children and adolescents.

Contact:Family VoicesPO Box 769Algodones, NM 87001505-867-2368505-867-6517 (fax)www.familyvoices.org kidshealth@familyvoices.org

The Federation of Families for Children’sMental Health is a national parent-run organiza-tion focused on the needs of children and youth withemotional, behavioral, or mental disorders and theirfamilies. The federation serves as a catalyst forchange by promoting partnerships among familymembers, professionals, and other interested citizensto improve services for children with emotional,behavioral, or mental disorders. It also providesleadership training for parents in advocacy and com-munity outreach.

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Contact:Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health1021 Prince StreetAlexandria, VA 22314703-684-7710703-836-1040 (fax) www.ffcmh.orgffcmh@crosslink.net

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is aparent-led organization that trains parents to getinvolved in schools and talk to the media to advocateagainst drunk driving. MADD parents serve on pub-lic, law enforcement, and legislative advisory boardsand aid in establishing local and county initiativesand task forces. Parents provide victim assistanceand conduct outreach. Workshops and publicationsare available.

Contact:Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)511 E. John Carpenter Freeway, No. 700Irving, TX 75062 972-869-2206 214-744-6233 (fax)www.madd.org

The National Association for the Education ofYoung Children (NAEYC) is the largest member-ship organization of early-childhood professionals.NAEYC works to increase public understanding andsupport for high-quality programs for young chil-dren and their families through public policy andpublic education initiatives. It collaborates withmedia representatives and government representa-tives at all levels to advocate for services for childrenand families.

Contact:National Association for the Education of

Young Children1509 Sixteenth Street, NWWashington, DC 20036800-424-2460202-232-8777202-328-1846 (fax)www.naeyc.orgnaeyc@naeyc.org

The National Coalition for Parent Involvement inEducation advocates for the involvement of parentsin their children’s education and fosters relationshipsamong home, school, and community that enhanceyoung people’s education. It provides informationthrough publications, training, and services.

Contact:National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Educationc/o National Community Education Association3929 Old Lee Highway, Suite 91AFairfax, VA 22030703-359-8973703-359-0972 (fax)www.ncpie.org ferguson@ncea.com

The National Network of Partnership Schools isa network of schools working to develop and main-tain partnerships with parents.

Contact:National Network of Partnership SchoolsJohns Hopkins UniversityCenter on School, Family, and Community Partnerships3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 200Baltimore, MD 21218410-516-8818410-516-8890 (fax) http://scov.csos.jhu.edu/p2000nnps@csos.jhu.edu

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Parents Anonymous is a national organization thatprovides technical assistance and training on a varietyof leadership skills for parents. Parents Anonymoustrains parents to train other parents to operatemutual support groups. The organization is basedon a vision that establishing parent input, leadership,and mutual support are essential components instrengthening families and preventing child abuseand neglect.

Contact:Parents Anonymous675 W. Foothill Boulevard, Suite 220Claremont, CA 91711909-621-6184909-625-6304 (fax)www.parentsanonymous-natl.org parentsanon@msn.com

Parents as Teachers trains parents to be parent edu-cators in its nationally replicated program to provideparents with the information and support they needto give their children the best possible start in life.Parents become certified to conduct home visits,coordinate group meetings, conduct developmentalscreenings, and link parents with service providersand other supports. Parent educators work in partner-ship with the school and the community.

Contact:Parents as Teachers 10176 Corporate Square Drive, Suite 230St. Louis, MO 63132314-432-4330314-432-8963 (fax) www.patnc.orgpatnc@patnc.org

The Time Dollar Institute, established in 1995 byEdgar Cahn, assists in the design and operation ofTime Dollar programs. The institute uses Time

Dollars—a local, tax-exempt currency—as a way tocreate an alternative to conventional currencies forpromoting the exchange of goods and services incash-poor communities.

Contact:Time Dollar InstitutePO Box 42519Washington, DC 20015202-686-5200www.timedollar.org

A D D I T I O N A L O N - L I N E R E S O U R C E S

In addition to the above national organizations, thefollowing websites offer useful information aboutresident engagement strategies:

www.pta.orgThe National Congress of Parents and Teachersprovides information for parents, teachers, students,principals, administrators, and others interested inuniting the forces of home, school, and communityon behalf of children and youth.

www2.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/hsb This website is maintained by the Head StartBureau as an electronic resource for Head Startservice providers, parents, volunteers, communityorganizations, and others who share an interest inhelping children look forward to a brighter future.

www.npnd.orgThe National Parent Network on Disabilitiesprovides a list of parent training and informationcenters in the United States. Most centers serve theentire state; others are community-based and servemore local areas.

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R E F E R E N C E S

The following references provide information aboutresident engagement and parent leadership:

Empowerment and Family Support, MoncrieffCochran, Ed., 1995, 167 pp. Cornell EmpowermentGroup. Available from Family Support America,312-338-0900.

From leading researchers in the parent empow-erment movement comes this compilation of two-years-worth of a networking bulletin published bymembers of the Cornell Empowerment Group.Articles offer research findings and program modelsto show how family support can empower families,especially low-income families, to meet the chal-lenges that face them. Special topics include childcare and the empowerment process, redefining theprofessional role, and a global view of empowermentand family support.

Essential Allies: Families as Advisors, Elizabeth S.Jeppson and Josie Thomas, 1995, 76 pp. Institute forFamily-Centered Care. Available from FamilySupport America, 312-338-0900.

A guide for family resource centers to involve par-ents in a variety of ways. Discusses the benefits of andbarriers to parent-provider collaboration, and pro-vides tips for developing partnerships with parents.

Findings from an Evaluation of the Parent Institute forQuality Education Parent Involvement Program, GailL. Zellman, Brian Stecher, Stephen Klein, andDaniel McCafrey, with Silvia Gutierrez, RogerMadison, Denise D. Quigley, and Lisa Suarez, 1998,19 pp. RAND Education, 310-451-7002.

Although there are ample programs designedto improve children’s educational outcomes by

teaching parents to become more involved in theirchildren’s schooling, few are evaluated. This makesit difficult for conclusions to be drawn about effec-tiveness in meeting goals. The evaluation in thisdocument was based on data from two large schooldistricts—outcome data from 2000 students in onedistrict and interview data from the second — toevaluate a local parent involvement program. Thisreport will be of interest to providers of parentinvolvement programs, school district personnel,and others concerned about helping children tolearn and the ways that parents can help to makethat happen.

Learning from Colleagues: Family/ProfessionalPartnerships Moving Forward Together, PeerTechnical Assistance Network. Writing team: JaneAdams, Charlie Bliss, Valerie Burrell Mohammad,Judith Meyers, and Elaine Slaton, 1998, 51 pp.Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health,703-684-7710.

This document presents research and commentaryon the issues involved in using a family-professionalpartnership systems approach in situations involvingfamilies of children who have developed or are atrisk of developing serious emotional, behavioral, ormental health disturbances.

Learning to Be Partners, Lynn E. Pooley, FloraWoratschek, and Jeanne Williams, Eds., FamilySupport America, Center for Assessment and PolicyDevelopment, and University of Pittsburgh Officeof Child Development, 1997, 250 pp. FamilySupport America, 312-338-0900.

This ready-to-use training program contains aweek’s worth of activities, handouts, discussionideas, and mini-lectures to help staff begin todevelop the skills and knowledge they need to act astrue partners with families. Written by a team of

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seasoned practitioners, trainers, and researchers, thecurriculum draws on group experience rather than“classroom” learning, active participation, hands-onpractice, and peer interaction and sharing. With thisdetailed road map, the trainer can guide staff whoare new to family support through a validating andsupportive training experience.

Making Room at the Table, Elizabeth Jeppson, JosieThomas, Anthony Markward, Joanne Kelly, GailKoser, and David Diehl, 1997, 72 pp. FamilySupport America, 312-338-0900.

With this program of guided activities, families,program planners, staff, policymakers, and other keyplayers develop the awareness and skills they willneed to work as a team in planning services and car-rying out programs.

National Standards for Parent/Family InvolvementPrograms, National PTA, 1998, 42 pp. NationalPTA, 312-670-6782.

Developed by the PTA in cooperation witheducation and parent involvement professionals,standards for communicating, parenting, learning,volunteering, school decision-making and advocacy,and collaborating with community were created tobe used in conjunction with other national standardsand reform initiatives in support of children’s learn-ing and success.

Partnerships for Change, 1997, two videos and a50-page guide. Family Communications, Inc., andUniversity of Pittsburgh Office of Child Develop-ment. Available from Family Support America, 312-338-0900.

This video-supported training program stressespartnership, shared decision-making, local gover-nance, and collaboration. Staff members and parentsare trained together to gain skills in identifyingstrengths, communicating needs, and reaching outto others in the community. Available in Spanishand English.

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cover photo: Bill Gentile

As part of the Making Connections Technical Assistance/

Resource Center, the following Resource Guides are

scheduled to be produced before the end of 2001:

Economic Oppor tun i t i e s fo r Fami l i e s

Connecting Families to Jobs

Building Family Assets

Enhanc ing Soc i a l Ne tworks

Family Support

Residents Engaged in Strengthening Families

and Neighborhoods

Bu i ld ing H igh-Qua l i t y Serv i ces and Suppor t s

Building More Effective Community Schools

Community Safety and Justice

Child Care for Communities

Meeting the Housing Needs of Families

Community Partnerships to Support Families

Improving Health Care for Children and Families

Developing Community Responses to Domestic

Violence

Techn iques fo r Advanc ing a Fami l y S t reng then ingAgenda i n Ne ighborhoods

Using Strategic Communication to Support

Families and Neighborhoods

Connecting Families to Computers and On-Line

Networks

Outcomes-Based Accountability

resource GUIDES

701 St. Paul Street

Baltimore, MD 21202

410.547.6600

410.547.6624 fax

www.aecf.org

The Annie E. Casey Foundation