Work Group Report: Family Support Networks

The session began with a discussion of current family support networking efforts. Family Resource Coalition of America (FRCA) presented information about their research of statewide family support networks. FRCA grouped typical networking activities into three groups:

Advocacy/Public Education
Technical Assistance and Training
Communication and Support

FRCA then shared their current efforts to support family support networking efforts.

The group broke into five working groups to 1) discuss current efforts to network in the family support field as well as resources available to support networking efforts, and 2) brainstorm about additional work and/or resourccs needed to facilitate networking. Listed below is the additional work recommended by each group.

Programming and Evaluation

Publicity at state and regional levels
Outreach to the following groups in every state:
- Children's Trust Fund
- Statewide Coalitions Public school systems
- Governor's Council
- Public health providers
Systematic connection among the funders
Models and tools for evaluating and assessing programs
More involvement from academic institutions
More mentoring among organizations
Assistance with fundraising and grant writing
National campaign that applauds parents

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Training and Technical Assistance

Comprehensive database of trainers at the local level (inexpensive)
Bartering system for trainers
Figure out what training is really needediSpecialize trainings to level of professional development
Trade intemship/sabbatical opportunities with other agencies
Share information about credentialing programs across the country
Want Ad section of FRCA's web page - for information resources, books, toys, curricula - and allow people to discuss strengths of difference resources
Host conference calls around topical areas
Want Ads at conferences

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State/Federal Advocacy Efforts

Bring organizations together (women, fathers, all groups)
Dissolve boundaries b/w state & federal, women's groups, social service agencies, advocacy groups)
Community centers and churches - find out their purpose and activities
Accountability - where does the money go for chiid support
Reduce duplicative services & combine some existing programs
School-parent relationships - make parents equal partners, school responsibility to all students
Talk about what makes us alike to foster a feeling of responsibility in our communities

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Family Support Collaborative Efforts

Collaboratives need to organize
Develop resource handbooks
Co-locate to facilitate collaborative efforts
Share newsletters
Connect family support with welfare reform

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Parent Involvement and Leadership

Learn techniques to create parent involvement
Empower parents (esp. teens)
Empower parents to become involved in child social school life from the beginning
Coordinate efforts between 0-5 and schools
Credibility to parents for being involved in child's socialischool life
Give parents financial support to participate
Facilitate parent involve from psychological /emotional setting
Registering parents to vote in creative ways
Collaborate with private organizations
Hiring parents to work with other parents
Educate national organizations about working with different cultural groups
Engage organizations in parent leadership efforts to try to partner with them

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Next Steps and Commitments

The group closed by discussing the next steps needed to support networking efforts, and participants made commitments to move the process forward.

Next Steps	Commitments Made
Notifications of federal legislation	FRCA: include legislation updates in publications, Reports Nadine Schwab: Talk to National Alliance of Children's Trust Funds FRCA: Send Parent Advocacy fact sheet to participants
Notifications of state and local legislation	WI Children's trust fund will take the lead to make this happen Connect agencies via e-mail or phone tree Agencies: act on legislative updates Agencies: Encourage parents to participate in the political process, through efforts such as: Participating in voter registration Taking people to polling places Teaching parents how to be politically involved Agencies: Collaborate with Head Start agencies who do parent advocacy training
Identify strongest leaders Use Parents Anonymous as a model	FRCA: Make connections with national groups for networking efforts, such as Head Start, National Urban League, disabilities, etc. FRCA: Make effort to broadcast our work to a larger audience Agencies: Send to FRCA a list of organizations that should be linked to family support networking efforts
Build on databases	Agencies: Send to FRCA the names of trainers who could be part of a national database of trainers Agencies: Send to FRCA contact information for programs that should be part of a national database of family support programs FRCA: Send multiple copies of program survey to agencies in the work group
Increase capacity of local programs	Donna: Write up the process her agency used to encourage parents to volunteer to use the web on behalf of the program FRCA: Distribute Donna's write-up
Advocate for resources to fund efforts, write grant to begin national collaboration efforts	FRCA: Send letter to share information FRCA: Create a list for interested group members
Connect family support to welfare reform movement	FRCA: Send multiple copies of welfare reform program survey to agencies in work group Agencies: Distribute survey to other family support programs
Disseminate information as broadly as possible	Agencies: Share information from conference with associates and community FRCA: Consider costs of pubs/membership and reaching out to non-members FRCA: Consider putting materials in libraries so communities can access them
Continue to stay connected as a group	FRCA: Create and distribute a mailing list of all programs at the session

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For technical assistance:
Library Technology Group
General Library System
University of Wisconsin-Madison