The International Parent Advocacy Network (IPAN) - which works to build a parent-led movement to transform child welfare worldwide - in partnership with Rise - a New York City-based organization that builds the leadership of parents whose families have been harmed by the child welfare system - has developed this toolkit for advocacy by parents whose families have been harmed by child welfare systems worldwide.
The parent advocacy movement seeks to build the power of parents who have been affected by the child welfare system. The toolkit is designed to be used to advocate for change, support families going through the child welfare system, raise up solutions, improve children’s lives and help build the movement. Members of IPAN, as well as parent advocates and allies around the world, identified a need for tools that can be used by parents and allies to help build a parent-led movement. Their vision was to connect parent advocates and allies working in isolation around the world by finding a way to share overarching goals, strategies for change and tools for organizing and building organizations.
In response, IPAN was funded by Oak and UBS-Optimus foundations to create this toolkit in partnership with Rise. The toolkit was developed in close collaboration with IPAN’s Parent Review Committee and ongoing feedback from parent advocates and allies around the world. It includes materials from 36 organizations from six countries. The toolkit was authored and developed by Rachel Blustain of IPAN and Tracy Serdjenian of Rise.
This online resource was created for parent advocates and their allies working within and outside child welfare systems, as well as for anyone wishing to start a parent-led program, organization or movement. It includes information and resources that parent advocates and their allies created or use in their work, as well as relevant resources from connected intersectional justice movements.
Included in the wide range of materials in the toolkit is an interview with a First Nation activist in Canada who started an organization to support parents and grandparents going through the system after being affected by the child welfare system herself as a child, a mother and as a grandmother. The toolkit also features proposed legislation from the United States that would stop timelines for termination of parental rights during the COVID crisis. Additionally, the toolkit offers learning on the importance of workshops for parent advocates on grief and loss and overcoming shame in one organization in Western Australia and materials that parent advocates around the world use to provide parents going through the system with information, emotional support and tools so that they can advocate for themselves.
The toolkit covers 10 areas:
- The Parent Advocacy Movement
- Community Organizing
- Legislative Advocacy
- Changing Practice
- Individual Parent Advocacy
- Support Groups for Impacted Parents
- Building a Parent Advocacy Organization
- Leadership Development
- Research and Evaluation
Many commonalities connect the experiences of parents around the world who have been affected by child welfare and other unjust systems. The toolkit is envisioned as a way that the international community can learn from one another’s experiences, building the power of parent advocates and impacted families and communities.
While IPAN and Rise endeavored to capture the powerful and important work done by advocates, allies and organizations, one challenge they faced was that people had not documented the steps in their processes for use by others. The developers of this toolkit hope to continue to develop and collect “how to” resources, while at the same time creating an even more inclusive toolkit. To that end, IPAN and Rise are currently collecting feedback to strengthen and grow the toolkit.
It is hoped that this global resource will support ongoing conversations and strategizing to build a network of connection and learning as the parent advocacy movement grows. The tool is meant to be shared widely and used in child welfare and advocacy work and those using this toolkit are invited to provide feedback, suggest materials for use in the future and join in ongoing conversations.