A ways back I listed a few ideas to consider when designing and implementing a community wellness program. I stressed the importance of involving parents throughout the process. Thus, one aspect of the program would be finding ways to gather ideas and share information with parents. As my diagram above points out, a community has multiple levels, from the macro community to the micro level of individuals in which to engage.

One way schools can connect with and share information with parents is through parent workshops. I intentionally choose the term “workshop” rather than presentation. Workshops encompass teaching but also bring in insights and perspectives from the parents. Another aspect of workshops is that parents work on processing, analyzing, and sharing their learning. An example of this is my workshop entitled Parenting in the Digital Age.

As we advance the community wellness program, I see myself reaching out to interested parents to form an advisory group to help me further grow the program. As mentioned in my wellness program design blog post, I would gather insights from parents on the most critical issues and topics they see for their families. I would also get their feedback on my initiatives and plans in response to what they share.

Back to parent workshops, I would work with this advisory group to design a series of workshops on wellness and parenting topics of their choosing. Zeroing in on wellness, I would ask for volunteers to be “wellness ambassadors” to help me with wellness workshops and supporting our community’s wellness. I suggest a few roles they could fill. Here are some that come to mind.

  • An essential partner in this process is the parent-teacher organization. I would start with their leadership team to get the ball rolling.
  • A sounding board for topic generation.
  • Unpacking topics for more profound understanding through the various cultural lenses of the community members.
  • Have them be my practice audience once I design the workshops. They could give me feedback to fine-tune the material before I work with the greater parent community.
  • They could work as table facilitators when we do the workshops with the greater parent community.
  • They give me feedback after the workshops on how they ran and what they learned from their table groups.
  • I advocate for their voices to be heard as we grow our wellness program.

I probably would not have these ambassadors engage in “how to parent-style” workshops. It could be uncomfortable putting them in the role of facilitating table discussions on parenting which can be a very personal and sometimes emotional topic to discuss. It makes more sense to have administrators and other instructional coaches who have experience working with parents help facilitate table discussions on parenting. 🙂

OK, here I go again, sharing some ideas I have yet to try and have not proven effective. I have written a few times with other ideas, such as constructing a parent portal to build community while supporting one’s parents. Hopefully, the ideas presented here make sense, and they elicit lateral thinking connecting to your experiences and plans to support your parent community.