Parent Leadership Development Program

Research shows that parent involvement is a necessary component to improving such a situation. In Urgent Message: Families Crucial to School Reform, Henderson and Lewis highlight that family involvement increases the achievement of individual students and schools as a whole (p.17).[1] Based on their findings in a study of over 100 programs, the American Youth Policy Forum recommends among other strategies: encouragement for families to increase their advocacy for meaningful and collaborative involvement in schools and youth programs as well as in district and city wide initiatives, the sharing of power with family members and their participation in program design, implementation and leadership positions, genuine and meaningful opportunities for family involvement in decision-making, and the provision of a range of services to families to increase their ability to support their children.[2]

Nuestra Casa seeks to meet these recommendations.

Community Leadership Program
Until at least 2008, Nuestra Casa’s leadership work will focus on the improvement of K-12 education for East Palo Alto youth.  Simultaneously, we will provide connections to people seeking services in other areas as well as with interests in using their leadership skills to work on other types of issues. Whenever possible and appropriate, however, we will guide people toward our area of focus: education reform. The central part of Nuestra Casa’s Community Leadership work is the Parent Leadership Development Program. The PLD Program empowers families, in particular parents, to participate in their children’s schools and education. The organization provides both basic courses and advanced leadership training:

• Staff provides a number of different basic courses on site at various schools to develop parents’ understanding of their rights, duties and opportunities for participation with regards to education systems. These courses are typically weekly, ninety minutes and can last from eight weeks to a semester. Basic themes are always present such as: homework assistance and involvement with academics, understanding of and access to the school system and its practice, and developing confidence in communicating with educators and other parents, though every group determines its particular needs and priorities. The majority of the sessions are conducted in Spanish and linguistically and culturally tailored to Spanish-speaking families.
   
• Advanced Leadership Training for parents consists of eight two-hour sessions provided in a two or three week period. Sessions teach parents more in-depth how the school system works and how they can advocate for their children as individual parents and together as a group.
  
• Each year, four basic sessions are held as well as two advanced sessions, each with at least fifteen participants.
  
• Nuestra Casa’s Parent Organizer also closely mentors the organization Parents Action and Strength (PAF in its Spanish acronym) a group developed by fifteen graduates of the 2005 summer Advanced Leadership Training. They define their priorities and the Organizer assists them in developing their strategies and activities to improve education in the district.

Nuestra Casa’s overall mission is to develop the quality and quantity of Latino immigrant leadership and participation in the community. While we have determined our priority in the next years as the improvement of K-12 education, we also know that the community faces many diverse challenges and many of the leaders we develop will be moved to work on issues in addition to education. We are beginning to facilitate their participation in other endeavors as well.