About Us

PARENT ADVISORY COUNCIL

What is the Parent Advisory Council?

FRIENDS has established a Parent Advisory Council to provide useful overall program direction and guidance to the activities of the Resource Center. Committee members share their experience and expertise in child abuse prevention and family strengthening through their active participation in FRIENDS workgroups and the annual Grantee’s meeting, development/review of FRIENDS written materials, and by providing resource center staff with consultation and advice. Members of the team include:

Sam Bowman
Nancy Connolly
Eliza Cooper
Brenda J. Hardy
Art Hernandez
Dawn Patzer

Sam Bowman is a resource coordinator at the Children's Center of Surry. She is funded by a Smart Start project to help families with children with special needs and families transitioning from neonatal intensive care units back to their home communities. The mother of three boys, her youngest son, Christopher, 19, was born prematurely with multiple medical issues. Since that time, she has served on local coordinating councils, consortium, school advisory boards, hospital advisory boards at Duke University and Wake Forest University Medical Centers, the North Carolina Family Resource Coalition Board, the North Carolina Partnerships for Inclusion Advisory Board, The North Carolina Pediatric Prescribed Child Care Board, the North Carolina Early Intervention Advisory Board, Chairperson of the North Carolina Family Council for Children with Special Health Care Needs, The Governor's Commission on Children with Special Health Care Needs, and is currently the state contact person for Family Voices. She has presented at numerous state and national conferences including the National Smart Start Conference, North Carolina Parent Leadership Training, parent trainer for Family Empowerment Training, the North Carolina Prevent Child Abuse Conference, the Trans-Atlantic Consortium, the Family Support America National Conference, and the International Parent to Parent Conference.

Nancy Connolly has worn many hats within Parents Helping Parents of Massachusetts, including being a support group participant, a parent leader, a facilitator, a trainer, and board president. Currently as the Program Director, she is responsible for 30 parent support groups across the state. She trains facilitators and parent leaders to lead groups and grow within the organization’s governance. She has a Master’s degree in family support and parenting education from Wheelock College. Nancy is the Chairperson of the national Parents as Leader’s Committee for Circle of Parents. She has been a parent’s voice at the table for many years.

Brenda Hardy is the mother of 2 beautiful daughters Grace Hardy (27) and Edwina Hardy (17) years old and 4 grands Bryon Jabari (9) Brishonda Jade, (4), Brionna Joy (2) and the newest addition Ms DonJanae JoyAnne Hardy (4 months old). She has previous experience with leadership skills through the U.S. Army (PLDC) Primary Leadership Development School located in Camp Casey, Korea, (BNOCA) Basic Non-Commission Officer Academy located in Tucson, Arizona. She served in the United States Army 11 ½ years, She is currently working with the Federal Government, the VA Medical center located In Montgomery, Ala as an Program Support Assistant in The Engineering Department, she been with the VA now for 15 years, she furthered her leadership skills by attending the Mentoring Course offered at her job on how to be an effective leader and other courses that was offered, and is currently on the waiting list to attend Action Base Leadership that will be offered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Art Hernandez would be proud to be part of the FRIENDS National Advisory Committee. Child Abuse Prevention and Family Strengthening are a passion of his. Art serves on the California Parent Leadership Team and on the National Parent Leadership Team both sponsored by Parents Anonymous. He is also a board member of Prevent Child Abuse Riverside County. The work he does for these organizations is extremely rewarding. Knowing that he is taking an active role as a parent in his community encourages him to engage other parents to do the same. Art has previously presented at the CBCAP grantee’s conference. He can be reached at ahernandezplease@aol.com or by phone at (951)303-4311.

Dawn Patzer is a married mother of three teenage daughters. She has been involved with mutual self help support groups for thirteen years. Currently, she co-chairs the Parents as Leaders team of Circle of Parents. Dawn helped develop the curriculum and is a trainer of the Parent Leadership Ambassador Training presented by Circle of Parents and sponsored by the FRIENDS National Resource Center. She is employed by the Katy Independent School District as a Special Education Adaptive Behavior Paraprofessional in Katy Texas.