Building a Culture of Parent Engagement: Missouri’s Success with Parent Cafés
By Katie Miller
In 2013, a small team received a start-up grant. Their vision of supporting families grew from one bus of parents in St. Louis to hundreds of parents across Missouri attending Cafés every year. Cafés – small-group, peer-led gatherings – give parents a safe, welcoming space to connect, learn, and support one another. The results? Deeper family connections, stronger community networks, and a statewide culture of parent engagement that others hope to replicate.
Parent Cafés are structured, reflective, small group conversations. In 2007, parent leaders from Strengthening Families™ Illinois created Parent Cafés based on the World Café model. Parent Cafés are a proven, parent-to-parent way to build Protective Factors within families.
Quote “The more you come, the more like family you become.” – Parent Café participant 2015. Plus image of the Parent Café Training Institute Manual
Parent engagement opportunities are never far from reach across Missouri.
Five Regional Parent Advisory Council groups convene representing the voices of parents from Southwest, Central/NE, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Southeast Missouri. Parent leaders engage their respective communities in discussions about issues that impact them. There are currently fourteen certified trainers across the state, ready to train hosts in the Café model.
The Parent Café partner network includes school districts, faith-based organizations, Head Start, the juvenile court system, neighborhood organizations, counseling centers, universities, colleges, YMCAs and community health care centers.
This level of parent involvement and leadership is what many regions aspire to.
So how did Missouri build such a robust statewide network of parent engagement and leadership?
You belong here: The first Parent Cafés set the tone
In 2012, Missouri received a SAMHSA grant for Project LAUNCH. The program aims to strengthen early childhood mental health and caregiver capacity through community engagement.
When searching for community engagement models to implement, Patsy Carter and Julie Allen with the Missouri Department of Mental Health, along with Sanaria Sulaiman with Vision for Children at Risk, became early champions of the Strengthening Families approach. They were excited to increase the Protective Factors of families by bringing Parent Cafés to Missouri.
In 2013, Be Strong Families trained 49 local leaders to host Parent Cafés in St. Louis. Attendees praised the Cafés for the sense of connection they felt and looked forward to bringing Cafés to their neighborhoods. Sanaria Sulaiman, CEO at Vision for Children at Risk and then Director for Project LAUNCH, used the Parent Café model to build relationships and trust with the community, before focusing on any other deliverables of the grant.
Determined, Sanaria hired people from the community and made sure every interaction with parents made them feel welcome and valued. They spoke with parents in grocery stores and on sidewalks. They wanted parents to know this was more than just another flyer for yet another program. Cafés would be a place where they belong.
And it worked.
They picked up parents on the bus, played lively music, offered free childcare, had dinner and coffee, and passed out gift cards at the end. The first 10 parents loved the Café series so much that they brought their friends. Soon, their numbers tripled.
Steady expansion of Cafés
Participation in the Parent Café grew, and trainers trained more Café hosts. Julie, Patsy, and their team partnered with agencies seeking new ideas for family engagement. Three training events certified 126 new Café hosts. An impressive 87% of participants strongly agreed with the statement, “This training taught me things I’ll start using in my life immediately.”
The organizers launched a Parent Café Leadership Team from the pool of 2013 Parent Café Training participants. Starting in 2014, the 7-member Leadership Team has shaped the direction of the Cafés statewide, including Café series themes, and ideal times and locations.
Cafés continued to expand to new counties, hosting 783 parent participants in 2015. Parent leaders, parent participants, agency leaders, and staff continued to report overwhelmingly positive results. Over 80% of parent participants surveyed said they were taking better care of themselves and that their relationship with their child or grandchildren felt stronger.
“I love it! I’m able to eat/feed the kids, and get some kid free all adult time while learning and destressing. Also, I get to learn that other parents have the same struggles.”
Café hosting agencies saw big increases in social connection. This was especially true for affinity group Cafés, like those for teen parents, dads, and families of children with special needs. Agency staff also reported gaining tremendous insight into the expertise of families.
Be Strong Families trainers returned regularly to train Café hosts around the state of Missouri. The benefits of Cafés for parents and agencies were clear. After the successful 5-year Project LAUNCH pilot, the Missouri community maintained high interest in continuing to offer Parent Cafés to parents across the state.
Poster board examples past from Parent Cafés. Reading “Welcome to Parent Café”, Factores de Protección and Activate Your Super Power.
Certified Training Partner program allows locally sustainable Café leadership
Parent Cafés became the backbone of parent engagement in Missouri, and they wanted to keep expanding. Be Strong Families worked to implement a train-the-trainer model to sustain the growth. In 2016, the state partnered with the University of Missouri who funded the Certified Training Partner (CTP) program, solidifying their commitment to supporting Missourian parents through Parent Cafés.
With the train-the-trainer model, the ability to certify Café trainers locally helps ensure they are never short on Café hosts. Missouri requires home visiting contracts to offer Parent Cafés for families. So, they, too, never want to be without certified hosts. As a CTP, they began to create their own training schedule, avoiding the extra cost of bringing Be Strong Families on-site for training.
What does it take to be a Parent Café Certified Training Partner?
Be Strong Families CTPs invest in the long-term success of Parent Cafés throughout their region. Agencies and/or their partners train staff through a three-phase Training of Trainers (TOT) process. It prepares them to facilitate Be Strong Families Parent Café Trainings and to support programs in implementing Parent Cafés with fidelity to the Be Strong Families model.
A CTP program requires a CTP Agency, Certified Trainers, and, in some cases, a CTP Sponsor (like in Missouri). Agencies host the CTP agreement, Certified Trainers train individuals, and a sponsoring agency funds their efforts.
Julie Allen is now Senior Director of Operations the Center for Excellence in CHILD Well-being at the University of Missouri, the current CTP. As a university, they can easily partner with state agencies and are now working with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to nurture parent engagement. The university raises, receives, and grants funding for the CTP initiative.
Fidelity to the Parent Café model is critical to its success. To become a Certified Trainer, you must apply, get accepted, and complete 60 hours of classwork. Be Strong offers ongoing support to CTPs through quarterly refresher training, connections to other CTPs, and access to an active, 4,500-member online Café Community of Practice online group. There, Café hosts and trainers share theme ideas, workshop templates, and other ideas for improving the Café experience.
Why did Cafés take off in Missouri?
Families report feeling seen and heard by the Café hosting agencies. Staff become more relatable and establish trust. Julie remembers at the first Café launch when staff and parents were trained in Cafés together. She was sitting next to an 80-year-old grandparent and a pregnant, 16-year-old mom. She was struck by how Cafés have a way of equalizing. No matter how old you are, if you have a job or a car or money or not, parenting is hard for everyone. Julie says it’s hard to articulate, but it changes people’s lives.
Every service provider wants to engage their families. Many providers struggle and ask how it succeeded in Missouri. Sanaria says Cafés are part of a long-term commitment, an investment of money and time. Leaders must build relationships in a safe and fun way. They must show their trustworthiness. Providing a safe space for parents and parent leaders takes intentionality and investment. But, the benefits are priceless.
Many organizations offer excellent, evidence-based programming to the community. But, if families don’t trust you, they won’t use them. Parent Cafés are a proven way to strengthen relationships between parents and providers. When trust is built, parents are more likely to participate, listen, and learn.
The front and back of a Parent Café t-shirt reads “Parent Café I’m not alone. Resilience, Relationships, Knowledge, Support, Communication.
“Having Parent Cafés opens up so many things. It builds connections between service providers and families that is organic and hard to articulate. We’ve been doing this for 12 years and organizations keep coming back. That speaks for itself.”
Be Strong and CTP ongoing partnership
Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) Head Start program is a CTP agency and have trained Café leaders for 12 years. Several MARC parent leaders served on the National Parent Café Leadership Team and the Be Strong Families’ Board of Directors.
From working and learning together over the past 13 years, Be Strong Families and the Parent Café community in Missouri have built a mutually beneficial relationship. Missouri was and remains at the forefront of the Be Strong Families CTP program. It’s a true partnership.
“Family and Community Engagement has amped up Parent Cafes as they continue to have a deep impact on families.”
SPECIAL THANKS
This article can only begin to reflect the many compassionate and dedicated individuals behind Missouri's thriving parent engagement efforts. Even so, we want to extend special thanks to a few whose contributions have been pivotal. Your efforts have shaped Parent Cafés in Missouri into the impactful and vibrant resource they are today, benefitting thousands of children and families across the state.
Julie Allen, Senior Director of Operations, University of Missouri Center for Excellence in CHILD Well-being
Patsy Carter, former Director of Children’s Clinical Services, Missouri Department of Mental Health
Sanaria Sulaiman, CEO, Vision for Children at Risk
Lynette Fowler, Family and Community Engagement Manager, Mid-America Head Start
Sam Blue, Family Support Partner: System of Care, Vision for Children at Risk
Let’s Build a Culture of Parent Engagement in Your State
Parent Cafés show what’s possible when you trust parents to lead. Missouri’s network is a model for building parent and community engagement, one conversation at a time. To learn more about Cafés, join a low-key Taste of Café event. If you're ready to host or expand Cafés in your area, send us a note and we'll talk about possibilities. Let's strengthen families together.