Your Own Community-Led
Effective Parenting Initiative
It takes the commitment and hard work of several individuals and organizations to begin such an initiative in your county or city. Some of these people and groups should already be involved in providing or promoting parenting education and support services, as part of their agency, department, school, religious institution, private company or consulting firm. The individuals should also be knowledgeable about and connected to other similarly disposed groups, coalitions, planning bodies and community leaders.
As the famous African proverb states, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Here it takes a group of villagers with a plan to raise an effective parenting initiative.
The Community-Led Initiative that NEPI is developing in Los Angeles, under the banner of the Uniting Los Angeles for Effective Parenting Project, can serve as the model for your plan. A detailed description of that growing project can be obtained by clicking here.
It includes sections on the Purpose of the Project, the four categories of Project Partners (including an Appendix document on the Benefits and Responsibilities of Project Partners), a description of the multiple Funding Sources for such a project, and the Five Components of the project.
Here are brief descriptions of the project components:
1. A Public Education Campaign to raise awareness about what constitutes effective parenting in the 21st Century and the role that parenting education plays in being an effective parent.
2. Training and Technical Assistance to improve and expand parenting services through such actions as the training of education and human service personnel from local schools, churches, temples, hospitals and other community agencies to be able to deliver the best parenting programs to the parents they serve in their neighborhoods.
3. Effective Parenting Expositions or Expos for parents where parenting education programs are showcased and where major child rearing issues having to do with nurturing, supervising, and disciplining children are addressed. These events are also part of the Public Education Campaign.
4. Centralized Telephone and Internet Parenting Information, Referral and Enrollment Services to connect parents 24/7 to parenting classes, seminars, workshops and other resources to educate and assist them in raising children.
5. A Regional Effective Parenting Council to coordinate effective parenting services and maintain quality control. The Council is composed of the various Project Partners, including those who provide, fund and publicize the project and its various parenting education services.
NEPI developed and is implementing the Uniting Los Angeles for Effective Parenting Project in cooperation with one of its Affiliated Organizations whose home office is in Los Angeles, the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC), a 34 year old, nonprofit parenting education institution. CICC and NEPI are the lead organizers of the project, and all of CICC’s contacts and relationships in Los Angeles are being relied upon to mobilize other local groups as Project Partners. These Partners also become Affiliated Organizations of NEPI and receive all of the programmatic and educational benefits of that affiliation.
For NEPI to devote its time and resources, including the expertise of its founder and the founder and executive director of CICC, Dr. Kerby T. Alvy, to assist your community in developing your own effective parenting initiative, your community must first have 10 NEPI Affiliated Organizations. That is, at least 10 local agencies, schools, hospitals, departments, companies, and/or elected officials must have joined NEPI as Affiliated Organizations. These would be the initial local organizations and individuals that would work with NEPI on developing your local initiative.
You can start this process by your organization becoming an Affiliated Organization of NEPI. Click here to find out more about what it means to be such an organization and how to join.
Once you have joined, NEPI will ask whether your organization would like to be involved in starting a local initiative, and a strategy for obtaining the other needed groups will be discussed.
NEPI looks forward to hearing from you.
