How To / Toolkits

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The Parent Leadership Training Institute is a course for parents designed to enable parents to become leading advocates for children.
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(See other resources by Connecticut Commission on Children)

Developed by the Memorial Fund, this matrix outlines parent opportunities and community responsibilities related to various levels of involvement and provides statewide resources for each area.
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Developed by the Memorial Fund, this honeycomb represents parent opportunities and community responsibilities in a Discovery community.
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This resource guide, developed by the Memorial Fund, focuses on increasing parent involvement, engagement and leadership. It provides a set of questions that community stakeholders can work through together.
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Published by the Urban Institute. This paper looks at the steps involved in building community capacity to use information for community change. Steps covered include: assessing community information capacity, strengthening the social and technological communications networks available in the community, building skills to use information for community change and providing technical assistance in support of community use of information.
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Published in June 2003 by Connecticut Voices for Children. This report summarizes the national literature on business engagement and provides case examples for six strategies businesses have used to engage at the national, state and community level on child care and school readiness issues and provides a look into Connecticut’s history of and opportunities for business engagement in early childhood issues.
(See other resources by Connecticut Voices for Children)

The School Communities that Work task force, part of an initiative of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, commissioned two case studies that illustrate some of the challenges and successes of civic partnerships in support of standards-based public education reform in urban settings. The studies also analyze factors for success and potential pitfalls, providing lessons for future work.

A project of the Communications Consortium Media Center, published by the Early Care and Education Collaborative. Jack Levine, President of Voices for Florida’s Children, explains how an alliance of child advocates, parents, business people, political leaders and voters was formed.
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A report by Lorie Slass of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania under the direction of Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. This report identifies lessons involving message, outreach and policy to help those working in the early childhood field understand how to draw various groups and their constituencies into efforts supporting public policies around children and their families.

Produced by the Family Investment Trust in 1997. This workbook is designed to develop and strengthen the partnerships between families, their schools and their communities. Users of the workbook can learn new ways to form genuine partnerships with family members. These ideas extend the concept of partnering beyond parents to other family members who play key roles in the family’s life.

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This website houses a database of parent leadership programs across the country with information about the goals of each program, whether the program has a replicable model, information about the training content and approach, logistical information, outcomes and evaluation, a self-assessment summary and comments from parents who have participated in the program.

This kit includes information for parent leaders on how to become a more effective advocate and decision-maker, including information on why parent leadership matters; a how-parent-friendly-is-your-school quiz; checklists of what to look for in your school; advice on how to use data, report cards and other No Child Left Behind Tools, and more. (Cost: $8.50)

Developed by the Memorial Fund, this tool outlines various parent engagement and leadership resources.
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This article summarizes three successful father involvement strategies. It was published in the Fall 2003 issue of the Early Childhood Research and Practice Quarterly.

Written by John Wherry, President of the Parent Institute for The Educators’ Notebook on Family Involvement. This tool offers quick tips for engaging parents in their children’s schooling.

Written by John Wherry, President of the Parent Institute. This tool offers concise insights on engaging parents in their children’s schooling.

This report, from the Center for Parent Leadership at the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and KSA-Plus Communications draws on research that documents the impact of parent involvement on student achievement. It includes exercises and talking points to help parents identify what role they want to play; from teacher to supporter to decision maker. The focus of the report is to provide practical advice on how to use parent involvement research to engage parents.