Authentic Family & Community Engagement CoP: Collaborative Leadership and Power Lessons on Authentic Family and Community Partnerships Series

Community development, or community building, depends on identifying, developing and sustaining relationships. Central to being successful in those relationships is community leadership. –Center for Collaborative Planning

In 2021, the Prenatal-to-Three (PN3) Hub at the BUILD Initiative invited Vital Village Networks to host a Community of Practice (CoP) focused on authentic family and community engagement. Over the next two-and-a-half years, this CoP – comprised of PN3 leaders from states and communities funded by the Pritzker Children’s Initiative – convened to explore, unpack, and reflect on best practices and lessons learned about authentically partnering with family and community advocates to advance health outcomes for children and families.

In June, BUILD welcomed advocates from Connecticut and Texas to share their approaches to parent leadership and advocacy within their regions. Amanda Cobb and Terry Wydick, Jr. discussed the Family Advisory Council of Help Me Grow/Help Me Thrive North Texas while Jayson-Ann Johnson and Talyn Cook outlined how Bridgeport Prospers is working to shift power through their community engagement model, which centers Civic Influencers, Parent Ambassadors, and Community Messengers.

Uplifting, upholding, and protecting the dignity of parents and community members was central to both teams’ approaches to shifting power and supporting community leadership towards improving outcomes for children and families. While several strategies were raised during the session, there are a few I’d like to uplift as foundational to building and maintaining authentic family and community partnerships – trust, co-creation and shared leadership, and capacity building.

There’s never a time when building trust is finished, we’re always building trust. – Jayson-Ann Johnson, CT

Trust is essential to any partnership; not only does it take time and effort to establish trust between partners and among members of a group, but maintaining trust is an ongoing process. Both teams of speakers highlighted the importance of holding space for community members to show up as their full selves, while being consistent and transparent. In Texas, Amanda and Terry outlined how they make time for their Family Advisory Council members to spend time together, both focusing on the work, as well as connecting over meals and fun activities.

The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) Transformative Community Capacity to Advance Equity Playbook (NOW Playbook) – a tool created by national partners across Vital Village Networks – recommends engaging in deep listening to nurture trust and meaningful connections through its lever of change focused on engaging communities authentically and with dignity.

We [Parent Advisory Council] are the family voice that guides what Help Me Grow and Help Me Thrive does. – Terry Wydick, Jr, TX

Collaboration and Co-creation is another essential strategy for shifting power and building authentic partnerships. The idea of shifting power simply means trusting that communities know what they need and creating conditions that allow them to have a say in both the design and implementation of solutions. The team from Help Me Grow/Help Me Thrive Texas talked about how members of their Family Advisory Council sit on every subcommittee driving their work. The Bridgeport Prospers team introduced their Community Engagement Spectrum outlining various levels of engagement and shared leadership they’re working toward with their Community Advocates.

Lever two of the NOW Playbook explores strategies and tools for implementing shared governance, including reassessing and deconstructing existing decision-making tables, which encompass the examples shared by these speakers, reimagining how decisions are made and who’s at the table making those decisions.

Enhancing and supporting community capacity to lead is another key element of collaborative leadership and power building. Regardless of industry or path, building skills together to better work together is essential to growth and sustainability. Terry (Help Me Grow Texas) highlighted professional development workshops focused on understanding gifts and strengths, as well as tools and techniques that support the work. For example, he’s now certified to host and facilitate Parent Cafés. Other members of the Family Advisory Council in Texas have participated in first aid, domestic violence, developmental disorders and more. Jayson-Ann and Talyn raised leadership development as a strategy they’re using to build and support the capacity of their Community Advocates to continue taking on decision-making roles across Bridgeport Prospers and their broader community.

To hear the full conversation with Amanda, Terry, Jayson-Ann, and Talyn please visit the BUILD Initiative website. You can use the following link to download the NOW Transformative Community Capacity to Advance Equity Playbook or visit the NOW Innovation Forum, which has a full database of tools and resources – www.networksofopportunity.org

Finally, stay tuned for part 2 of this blog series on Collaborative Leadership and Power Building through Family and Community Partnerships, where the featured speakers will answer several questions raised during the webinar that were not answered live.