Families First Parent Ambassador Mikeya Kirksey is a Power of Parenting alum, a devoted mother of two, and a mentor for participants in our new Parent Leadership Program.
Mikeya Kirksey is a mother of two boys, ages 5 and 13. After she graduated from the Power of Parenting in 2018, she joined the pilot phase of what is now our Parent Leadership program.
The Parent Leadership program grew out of an understanding that parents know their children and communities best. However, when it comes to planning the programs and systems that impact their children’s well-being, the inclusion of parents is lacking.
“I think the Parent Leadership program is a great opportunity for parents to grow—as parents and as people too.” – Mikeya Kirksey, Parent Ambassador
“A lot of parents think, ‘I’m just a parent, and I don’t have any skillsets.’ But, in reality, they have a lot to offer and give. Parents can learn from each other as we advocate for our children.” – Mikeya Kirksey, Parent Ambassador
There is no doubt that parents are role models and agents of change in their communities. Through the Parent Leadership program, parents are creating a ripple effect as they spread positive parenting practices across new networks, advocate for their children, and encourage other parents to do the same. With this upstream approach, hundreds (likely thousands) of additional children will benefit from more equitable systems that are designed to meet their needs.
Category: Marketing and Promotional Activities
Need: The Basics Boston needs local parent voices to help them reach new communities to raise awareness and enrollment in their free text message services.
Goal: The goal is to target parents in several key neighborhoods (Mattapan, Roxbury, and Dorchester) to increase enrollment in the text message service and increase awareness of the Basics principles.
Activities:
- Tabled at several locations, several times:
- East Boston Library
- Grove Hall Library
- South End Early Education Center
- Gave out Basics flyers and brochures (see below)
Deliverables:
- Signed up 62 families
- Gave out flyers
- Prepared QR Code to sign parents up
Impact:
- The fellows learned to talk about the Basics resources and tools, and how to confidently spread the messages with parents in the libraries as well as at Day care centers. They overcame language barriers by using body language and patiently explaining what the Basics Insights- Text Messages are about.
- They received positive feedback from parents, such as: the texts messages are easy to understand and follow, they found it useful and shared it with other parents and nannies, and there is interest for The Basics to have workshops at Daycares and libraries.
- They also discussed ways to improve the project, such as: reaching out to more locations and different types of organizations, have brochures in more languages to reach a wider network, and also to provide workshops in different languages.
Category: Community Event, Resource Development, and Advocacy
Need: Although there are Family Engagement activities happening in the district, many parents may not know about it and what resources are available to them. So this Summit will bring together the departments offering the services, and the parents who are multi-lingual and new to the district so they can learn about it.
Goal: The goal is to create a Summit to bring together all the people and departments from the district involved in Family Engagement and invite newcomers to the Randolph district to learn about what is available. The CIP Fellows will work with Randolph Staff to brainstorm and create a successful and inclusive district-wide event!
Activities:
- Agree on a date and time for the event (consider best times for Target Audience).
- Find and reserve a space for the Summit, a convenient location in the community—High School.
- Identify and recruit resources in community (WIC, Food Pantry, Family Resource Center, etc.)
- Reach out to and recruit local services,… ask for information and for participation in fair.
- Confirm interpreters for the event—Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Spanish…
- Develop outreach strategy for event awareness
- send emails through school principals and administrators
- Create and post Event flyers around town (laundromats, housing complexes, grocery stores, food pantry, churches)-See Flyer below
- Post on Facebook (Community pages)
- Set up activities for children to do during event—asked teachers to stay and help.
- Create pamphlet of local activities that are free/low-cost for families.
- Hand out resource leaflet during the event
- Include resources in other languages (Spanish, Haitian Creole, Portuguese and Vietnamese)
- Prepare for event:
- gather materials
- buy snacks/juice
- confirm details with featured providers
- Hold the event!
Deliverables:
- Event flyer translated into several languages:
- More than 80 families attended the event
Category: Community Events, Needs Assessment, and Expanding Parent Leadership Opportunities
Need: Need to access parent perspectives in order to create more inclusive courses.
Goal: Continue to develop and execute strategies to enhance parent perspectives in the courses taught at Urban College.
Impact:
- More parents have approached Urban College wishing to get degrees.
- Leadership Fellows participated in meetings with faculty, which helped faculty better understand what their students (many of whom are also parents and immigrants) are experiencing.
- Urban College intends to create modules that will be embedded in existing college courses or develop new courses on how to and the importance of parenthood in relationship to Early Childhood education.
- Changed the curriculum to include requirement that Early Childhood Education students interview a community member as part of the unit. Urban College wants to go a step further and include parents on the curriculum committee.
- Project was successful so Urban College was able to hire a coordinator to lead the work moving forward, and other faculty wish to be more connected with the project next year.
- A Fellow secured a job as a community health worker due to the research skills she had acquired through the CIP!
Category: Community Groups, Advocacy, and Family Leadership Opportunities
Need: Somerville has various organizations working to engage and empower families within the public schools. These organizations tend to work independently of one another. In order to optimize family voice and impact, it is necessary for the groups to coalesce and work towards a collaborative vision and strategy towards city-wide community engagement.
Goal: The goal of the Somerville Family Engagement Impact Project is a collaborative vision of family engagement that will be in place as a foundation for city-wide family engagement planning in the 2023-24 school year.
Impact:
- The Somerville Family Engagement Impact Project is an initial effort to prepare the foundation for ongoing city-wide Family Engagement collaborations.
- Initial Impact is the identification and acknowledgement of diverse leadership potential within the community while building Family Leadership skills in community organizing, outreach, meeting facilitation, and public speaking.
- The coalition will draft a community vision that will ultimately result in the amplification, diversification and sharing of family voice.
- The community will experience the positive effects of growth in Family Leadership using Collective Impact as a guiding model.
Category: Marketing and Promotional Activities , Needs Assessment, and Community Events, Groups and Services.
Need: Identify and implement at least three new strategies to engage community members from all seven coverage areas, with a special focus on the new towns. After executing these strategies, we hope to have at least one new regularly attending family from each of the seven towns that we serve.
Goal: Raise awareness of programming for families across all 7 towns it serves.
Deliverables:
- Created a survey and sent it to the current members to assess their needs.
- Made website and other media updates to make it more user-friendly.
- Created a testimonial page
- Created a new logo for the organization.
- Improved social media presence
- Created a flyer to hand out at events and key locations.
- 30 new families signed up for playgroups when registration opened.
- Held a Halloween Event
- Reached 200 families through a sensory-friendly room at a Halloween event
Category: Community Events, Groups, and Services, Fundraising, and Marketing and Promotional Activities
Need: According to the 2022 County health Rankings for the 14 counties ranked in Massachusetts, Berkshire (BE) is ranked among the least healthy counties in the states (lowest 0-25%). The local and most utilized park in Dalton, MA is inappropriate or inaccessible to children who are under the age of 6, as well as children with different abilities. Parents have reported that it is difficult to get to their children if there is a problem in the climbing equipment.
Goal: We would like to work towards having a Born Learning Trail Kit installed in Pinegrove Park. We would also like to add permanent posts for StoryWalks to be placed along the Born Learning trail.
Impact: This project will reach many children, families, camps, and early childhood programs throughout Central Berkshire Regional School District and Berkshire County. This playground is the most utilized in the Town of Dalton and Central Berkshire. The StoryWalk signs are permanent structures and will enhance and engage all that use it for years to come. The impact will be immediate, and we will look to install this in two other rural towns afterwards.
There was some media attention for this project, here are a couple of articles written in a local pages:
- Berkshires.macaronikid. new-storywalk-at-the-born-learning-trail-in-dalton
- Dalton-Welcomes-Born-Learning-Trail-at-Pinegrove-Park
Category: Marketing and Promotional Activities, Resource Development, Community Events, Groups, and Services, and Needs Assessment
Need: Developing a communication pathway for the Office of Early Childhood to get caregiver’s input and to share information and resources back out to Boston’s families.
Goal: To create a communication pathway for the OEC to to share information on resources and opportunities for caregivers with children ages 5 and under and get parent input back.
Impact:
- Uplifting the voices of caregivers and families by giving them a space to reach out
- Have policies and programs that reflect their voices
- Creating family/caregiver networks and alliances
- Make caregivers feel affirmed and supported
- Provide the resources families need to reach their full potential as caregivers
Multilingual Brochures on the City of Boston website:
Category: Needs Assessment, Resource Development, and Community Events
Need: The world of child mental health and wellness is often overlooked and can be a difficult realm for parents and caregivers to navigate.
Goal: Our goal is to make resources supporting children’s social emotional wellness more easily accessible and available for all families served by Self Help Inc. CFCE and foster meaningful community connections through a variety of in person and virtual activities over the next six months.
Impact:
- Facilitated Community Cafés focused on mental health gathering about 24 families from across their area.
- Placed 72 SEL books in various languages in Little Free Libraries
- Compiled SEL resource list for website
- Developed a set of resources on website under “Speaking from the Heart” page.
- Organized monthly informal Zoom spaces for families to connect
- This project helped school guidance counselors become more responsive to parents in one district, sharing about issues challenging families. These parents are now organizing a meeting with task forces working with hotels housing migrant families.
- They hope to grow their Family Ambassadors program with representation from additional cultural groups.
