Co-create and share clear messaging about boundaries, ethics, and behavioral expectations for staff and families when they are representing the organization.

Develop and disseminate funding strategies, including development of new funds and innovative use of existing funding streams.

Use Parent Engagement and Leadership Assessment (PELA) with a multidisciplinary team (including families) to support goal setting, action planning, and intentional implementation of improvement plans.

Prioritize family leadership as a funding priority, including evaluation components to demonstrate impact.

Provide clinical mental health consultation for staff supporting family engagement and leadership initiatives.

Include families, from the beginning, in development and decision-making forums and Network development opportunities, including the annual Educare Network Meeting.

Offer civics training for parents and staff.

Utilize reflective practice approaches, motivational interviewing, etc., to support and empower parents as informed decision makers.

Develop guidance and professional development opportunities related to male involvement.

Provide mental health consultation and referral for parents.

Provide funds to prevent or address unforeseen circumstances to avert family crisis (emergency funds).

Provide financial and other resources that remove barriers to parent participation (child care, food, expenses, etc.) and compensate parents equitably for their expertise and skill.

Develop training pathways, incentives, and encouragement for parents to become employed with the organization.

Provide guidance and training to staff supporting family engagement to understand and avoid tokenism.

Create a glossary of terms for family engagement and family leadership to promote accessibility.

Provide clear and respectful messaging about the use of agency funds.

Personalize family outreach and encouragement.

Identify/develop tools to examine policies, procedures, and practices through a justice and equity lens.

Assure outreach/educational materials are available in accessible formats and languages, using plain language.

Offer diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) and justice training for all staff and parents.

Cultivate community, state, and/or national partnerships with joint interests in family leadership development.

Foster leadership through parenting and/or caregiver-child focused opportunities or other experiences as an entry point for leadership development (e.g. cooking classes, substitute training, resident parent artist).

Develop mechanisms for continued networking, collaboration, and other opportunities for family leadership alumni.

Support a network of peer-to-peer outreach to develop and sustain parent leadership within your organization.

Utilize the resources of the Network by reaching out to other schools to learn more about their experiences, lessons learned, etc.

Explore opportunities for sustainability, expansion, and refinement through programs like Frontiers of Innovation.