About Us
Circle of Parents ® is a national network of national parent leaders and twenty-five statewide and two metropolitan regional non-profit organizations dedicated to using a peer-to-peer, self-help model of parent support as one of the means of preventing child abuse and neglect and strengthening families. The organization works in collaboration with Prevent Child Abuse America and has been a resource partner for the FRIENDS for over three years. Circle of Parents members pool resources, whether cash, goods, services, expertise or in-kind contributions to carry out its mission. Dedicated to sharing leadership among parents and professionals, national network members represent all walks of life and include parent leaders, organization administrators, community organizers, management and program services staff and a variety of human services professionals. Fully honoring the principles of mutual respect, equal contribution and shared leadership, each member participates in developing the infrastructure, capacity building and training and technical assistance activities associated with the work of Circle of Parents.
Over the five (5) years of the current FRIENDS project, Circle of Parents ® is committed to providing training and technical assistance to CBCAP state lead agencies to enhance their:
- Understanding of the value, benefits, challenges and behaviors associated with including parent leaders in family support and child abuse prevention program and policy development;
- Ability to build capacity within their respective states to engage parents as participants and leaders in the design, implementation and evaluation of program initiatives aimed at the prevention of child abuse and neglect;
- Influence on the inclusion of parent leaders in the Program Improvement Plans of the Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSR) and the Child and Family Services Plan (CFSP) processes; and
- Competence to contribute to the creation of a useful took kit on parent leadership development for state wide and community-based child abuse prevention programs.
Circle of Parents will contribute the assets of its Parents as Leaders and Training and Technical Assistance Committees to the FRIENDS National Resource Center for CBCAP.
For more information on Circle of Parents, please see their website.
