LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 25, 2005) -- Parents of preschool children and those who participate in the state’s adoptive and foster care program will learn how to become more effective advocates for their children’s education under two new partnerships announced today.
The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and the University of Kentucky will collaborate to expand the committee’s Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership (CIPL) to include the two groups of parents. CIPL, established in 1997, provides training for parents to help them form partnerships with schools and meet specific needs to improve student achievement.
The new partnerships were announced by UK President Lee T. Todd Jr. and Robert F. Sexton, executive director of the Prichard Committee.
“None of us alone can do what all of us together can do," Todd said. “Today it is with great pleasure that we can partner with government and education, but most importantly with parents to improve the educational outcomes for all of our children.”
One Collaborative effort will create a new version of the Prichard Committee’s CIPL specifically for parents of preschool children. That effort will pair the committee with UK’s Interdisciplinary Human Development Institute (IHDI) to develop a program to train parents and professionals to work together to improve children’s early care and education. The work is supported by a grant to the Prichard Committee from the Knight Foundation.
Working parents often have difficulty finding ways to be actively involved in their child’s care and development, noted Beth Rous, IHDI’s director for community education and early childhood. “Through our training program, parents and professionals will have information and tools they need to help increase the family’s active involvement in their child’s early care and education programs and in supporting their child’s growth and development.
Under the second partnership, the committee with work with UK’s Training Resource Center in the College of Social Work to make the CIPL training available to foster and adoptive parents. This work will begin by focusing on at least one foster and one adoptive parent in each of the state’s 16 regions. They will be trained to mentor other parents who want to become more involved in their children’s education. The partnership is supported by the State Cabinet for Health and Family Services’ Department for Community Based Services under a grant to UK.
“The nature of out-of-home care placement makes it important that those who are providing care for these children understand how schools work and how school performance can be affected by the way children in care respond to their new surroundings,” said Chris Groeber, director of the Training Resource Center.
“Helping more parents and families be engaged seriously with their schools is central to improving education,” Sexton noted. “These strong University of Kentucky programs will be a great help in doing more of this.”
The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence is a nonprofit organization of citizens who work to improve education for all Kentuckians.
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