Western Pennsylvania Parent
Education Network
Strengthening Parent Education in
Western Pennsylvania
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What
is the Western Pennsylvania Parent Education Network?
The Parent Education Network
is a regularly scheduled gathering of people working at all levels in
the parent education field locally. The Network's purpose is to
provide support, information, and resources to those of us who do this
work.
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How did the Western Pennsylvania Parent
Education
Network begin?
The Western Pennsylvania
Parent Education Network was inspired by feedback from key informants
in the field of parent education. These parent educators
identified several challenges they faced:
- A lack of reliable
evaluations of parent education programs;
- A lack of time or
resources to access information from the field;
- A lack of opportunity
to meet with one another to share resources and ideas so that everyone
could benefit from one another's experiences.
Although each challenge
could be addressed individually, an alternative evolved that would
create a network of parent educators working to strengthen the practice
of parent eduction in Allegheny County and subsequently in Western
Pennsylvania. This network provides a needed channel for program
staff to assist one another in the challenges they share. Smaller
organizations benefit from connection to larger ones, and newly
developed programs benefit from the experience of
more established ones.
The Parent Education
Network began in the Spring of 2001. Attendees, mostly from
Allegheny County, include seasoned veterans in the field and those just
starting out. Members of the network meet every other month with
the goals of:
- Sharing resources and
training experiences;
- Identifying needs in
the field and creating strategies for responding to those needs;
- Nurturing parent
educators new to the field;
- Providing a formal
structure for peer support.
Network meetings alternate
between presentations of specific curricula and discussions of topics
facilitated by a presenter or Network Chair. Governance meetings
are held every other month to brainstorm topics and develop agendas for
network meetings.
The Parent Education
Network is still in its early stages and feedback from each meeting
continues to shape the future direction of the network. We hope
the network will assist in producing more effective programs, since
collaborative efforts will
be stronger than isolated individual programs. Allegheny County
can
now benefit from an organization designed to evaluate, enrich, and
strengthen the field of parent education in the region. We hope
you will be a part of our network.
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How do you become a part of the Western
Pennsylvania
Parent Education Network?
For information about the
Parent Education Network and how you and/or your organization can get
involved, contact Andi Fischhoff at Family Resources. Please
include your name,
address, email address, phone number, organization affiliation, and
organization
webpage address in your email or voicemail message. We welcome
all
interested parties and organizations and look forward to hearing from
you
soon.
Contact information:
Western Pennsylvania Parent Education Network
c/o Andi Fischhoff
Family Resources
141 S. Highland Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15206
Email:
info@familyresourcesofpa.org
Telephone
412-363-1702 ext. 1168
Fax:
412-363-1724
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Topics
of discussion
The Western Pennsylvania
Parent Education Network provides speakers and panel discussions on a
variety of topics in the field of parent education. Some of the
topics that have been presented (or which we hope to present in the
future) are:
- Multigenerational
parenting
- The National Extension
Parent Education Model
- Anger management
- Child abuse: a
general discussion
- Child abuse: the
dynamics of a family in crisis
- Family Resources
"Parent-Teen Conflict Project"
- Parenting a child who
has been sexually abused
- Normal sexual
development of children and adolescents
- Family Reunification
- Parent education with
pregnant and parenting teens
- Advocating for
children and families on a state level
-
Integration/coordination of parent education programs with other
services
- Programs for parents
of teens
- Parent education when
parenting is complicated by drug or alcohol abuse
- Ethics in parent
education
- Evaluation of programs
and outcome
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Tentative schedule of upcoming
meetings of
the Western Pennsylvania Parent Education Network
To find out about our
tentative
schedule for future Governance meetings and Network presentations,
please
contact Andi Fischhoff, at andif@familyresourcesofpa.org or
412-363-1702.
All meetings begin promptly at 9:30 AM and end at approximately 11:00
AM.
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This web page designed and maintained by Heather Frye.
