MCHB 2006 Federal/State Partnership Meeting

Cultivating Champions - The Bravery Factor

October 15-18, 2006

KATHY WATTERS: Thanks Monique. And I agree, this is going to be the most exciting session that you attend and it is the most exciting session for me also because this is a very exciting time in parent leadership, and it is one of my favorite topics. So, we're going to get into lots of information, and we'd like to hear from you too, your thoughts about how to move forward with parent leadership across the country.

Before Eileen starts, I'm going just mention a few things just to stimulate some thinking before Eileen gets into her fabulous presentation. Yesterday, Elizabeth Duke and Deborah Klein-Walker, who I was very inspired by, talked about mentoring parents and really focusing on parenting as a job. And they talked about MCH really needs to maintain this--a strong role in giving parents what they need for that job of parenting, that MCH needs to continue to give them those resources for parenting.

Now, MCH also in about the last 20 years, has been exploring the role of parents in a different fashion, a different job for parents, a job outside their central role of parenting. And we've explored parent participation, parent involvement, and we now have a national performance measure for parent participation and parent involvement. So this national outcome is helping us to think about it, to measure it, and make sure that parents are involved in every level in states. I think right now is a great, great time for MCH leaders to come together and talk about this different role of parents, this new job for parents, this new occupation for parents. A paid position that is very, very critical for MCH programs to move forward in the future. This new occupation, paid occupation is called, "Parent Leadership". We need to, however, parent leadership is its own discipline, has its own expertise, and we need to be willing to elevate the importance, and we need to be willing to invest in the training. And Eileen's going to get a little bit more involved in talking about that training, that leadership training. Parent leaders provide their own discipline, they have their own expertise, and they are just as important as the other disciplines that we hire. In Colorado, we are seeing parent leaders are just as important as the physicians, the nurses, the stat analysts, the planners, the administrators that we hire. They are in a critical member of our MHC-CSHCN team. Parent leaders are especially important for this area of our work that is going to move us into the future, and that is that parent leaders really help us connect with those non-traditional partners, that I think is a key factor for MCH in the future. The business leaders, the foundations--in Colorado we have a million foundations that are supplementing healthcare, and we need to partner with them. Our funding is not going to grow and we need to establish those really important partners. Parent leaders are not seen as government. Parent leaders are really that liaison between government and the community, even when they're paid by us. They are such a valuable partner and such a valuable component of MCH programs that again, I think it's time for us all to come together in terms of being very concise and very clear that this is a required member of our team, a paid member of our team. Title V in Colorado has maintained a parent position at the state office. We have had a full-time paid parent leader for 13 years. Now, 13 years ago, we didn't exactly know what this position was going to do, and that role has evolved over time, but that position at the state office is seen as just as extremely valuable as some of the other disciplines that we hire. We have not only that state position, but we have 14 part-time consultants in our regional offices across the state--part-time parent consultants across the state. We also support Family Voices financially, and Family Voices also is a very strong leader in Colorado. Family Voices is that organization that really keeps us on top of legislation, you know, we kind of walk that tricky walk with the legislature, Family Voices keeps us involved in legislation that's good for kids and families, and they help to prevent legislation that is harmful to kids and families in the states. So they're a very, very strong partner, and they are also very strong parent leaders. There are other parent leadership activities going on in Colorado, but we really need to grow parent leadership. We really need to grow it. We need to invest in it as well, and especially invest in the training. And Eileen will get into some of those components of the training. So now I'd like to introduce you to our speaker this morning, and I have to say that Eileen Forlenza is a gift, she's a human gift to everyone who works with her. She has innate leadership ability, she has studied leadership, she was probably born a leader, but I'm going to have ask her dad about that after the presentation. She has cultivated leadership throughout her life. Eileen has worked with our Title V program for three years at the state, and she worked in one of our regional offices for about a year before that. I am proud to introduce Eileen, our Title V parent leader. She is the czar of parent leadership in Colorado.