Report of the Chair

Report Betty Cooke, NPEN Chair, March 2010-March 2012
March 2011

As NPEN Chair I am committed to supporting NPEN in becoming the best organization it can be in addressing the professional needs of parenting educators. I do this because of the following beliefs I hold: Raising children is challenging; no job may be more challenging and more important to our nation's future than that of a parent. Given this, the development and availability of high quality parenting education is critical, and for this work we need the best prepared and supported parenting educators we can have. NPEN can play an important leadership role in making this happen.

In my first year as chair of NPEN I have come to know the many talents of our dedicated NPEN Council members and am grateful to them for their contributions and support throughout the year. (See list of current Council Members and their Council Member Close-Ups: http://www.npen.org/about/council-list.html.) The Council Members and I look forward to interacting more with other NPEN members and listserv subscribers in the year ahead.

We welcome five new members to the NPEN Council—Frances Guzman, Pam Langer, Debbie Reilly, Denise Rennekamp, and Annie Zirkel. These new members joined us thanks to the efforts of the Nominating Committee led by Barbara LeBlanc. I want to express our thanks to Alicia Finn, Amr Ghaleb, and Michelle Gross for their contributions as they leave the Council.

NPEN Committee Accomplishments and Plans
This report provides an overview of the activities and accomplishments of the past year and indicates plans for the coming year.

The 2011 NPEN Council Annual Meeting was held on February 9-10, 2011 in Denton, TX and included a day of strategic planning for the future of NPEN. The Strategic Plan will soon be available on the NPEN website. Implementation of the Strategic Plan goals and objectives occurs in the NPEN Committees (See NPEN Committee information at http://www.npen.org/about/committees.html.). The structure and function of the NPEN Committees was modified based on the results of strategic planning. There are now six NPEN committees, and they are highlighted in this report.

Work on the NPEN listserv and website is led by the newly renamed Communications and Website Resources for Parenting Educators Committee co-chaired by Ann Corwin and Claire Lerner. The listserv has clearly been the focal point of the activities of NPEN during the past year. Lively and substantive discussion has occurred among our over 400 listserv subscribers in recent months on the following subjects.

Requests for information on curriculum and other resources on such topics as the impact of stress, trauma and family violence on parents and children; teen moms and postpartum depression; sexual education; working with parents at homeless shelters; parenting for families with children in the juvenile justice system; parenting education in a pediatric setting; parenting classes for parents of children with ADHD; working with parenting in the schools; un-schooling; children and sports; co-parenting; and cyber bullying
The availability of conferences, courses, and webinars related to parenting education and parenting
Discussion of hot topics such as spanking and corporal punishment, the impact of social media on children, and the recent discussion of the book by Amy Chua on Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
Issues directly related to the field of parenting education including definition of terms and differences in delivery of parenting education, e.g., differences between parenting educators and parenting coaches, parenting education and parenting training, group parenting education and home visiting. There have been requests for information on peer-to-peer parenting education and promoting participation in parenting education. Conceptual frameworks for parenting education and parenting educator competencies have been part of this discussion along with the importance of research-based information in our field.
Assessment and evaluation of various aspects of parenting education including parent needs assessment, parenting style inventories, assessment of parent-child attachment, and social and emotional development screening tools for children.

Plans are underway to capture the main topics of listserv discussion on the NPEN website along with resources related to them. In all listserv discussions, we emphasize that listserv subscribers follow the Netiquette guidelines posted on the NPEN website at http://www.npen.org/listserv/policies-netiquette.html. Policies related to Advertisements of Products or Services and Job and Conference Announcements are also available.

The website is gradually being updated as resources allow. Updating in the works and planned includes:

Completing updates of the “Parenting Education Networks, Organizations, and Programs by State” section of the website at http://www.npen.org/profdev/state-networks.html. Based on a survey done by Council Member Heidi Stolz and the work of her graduate students, you’ll see updated information for many states with the remainder of the updating to soon follow. Once this first round of updating is completed, we’ll make available a process for state leaders to let us know about new and changing networks, organizations, and programs so that this portion of the website is a constant and current resource for those desiring connections with colleagues in their states.
We plan to enrich the “Resources for Parenting Educators” section of the website with links to curriculum, program, evaluation, and other resources, highlighting the websites of NPEN members for specified times and keeping current on conferences and other events of interest to listserv subscribers and members.

The Professional Preparation and Recognition Committee co-chaired by Jerri Wolfe and Pam Langer is planning an NPEN co-sponsored National Forum on Professional Development Systems for Parenting Education on May 9-10, 2011 at Oregon State University in Corvallis. It is anticipated that this will be a significant step in the development of professional recognition systems for parenting educators. Committee member Dana McDermott is preparing a document on core competencies of a parenting educator through analysis of existing sets of competencies, and Stephanie Jones, another committee member, is developing a process for analyzing how various professional recognition systems are implemented, both to be presented at the May forum. Dana also updated the “Degrees and Certificates” section of the website at http://www.npen.org/profdev/degrees-cert.html.

Promoting membership among those subscribed to the NPEN listserv as well as those new to NPEN has been a top priority of the Networking and Membership Committee during the past year and will continue to be one in the future. This committee is co-chaired by Carla Weir and Mary Margaret Reagan-Montiel. Thanks to the efforts of Council Member Ann Corwin, membership payment is now available online through PayPal on the NPEN website at http://www.npen.org/join.html. Members-only benefits are under consideration as a way to further promote membership. Another priority of this committee is support of states in development of their own state Parenting Education Networks (State PENs).

The new Leadership and Advocacy Committee co-chaired by Michele Ostafy and Eve Sullivan will focus on NPEN’s leadership role in advocating for national recognition of parenting education.

As an almost all volunteer organization, we have recognized for some time that ongoing funding for administrative support would likely enhance the effectiveness of our organization. The Financial Resource Development Committee, co-chaired by Debbie Reilly and Liz Pearce, will make it a top priority to seek funding for such support.

In the coming months you can expect to see more information on the NPEN listserv from the committee chairs about committee work. We will continue to work together to move forward in our role of providing national leadership for parenting educators and the field of parenting education.

I want to thank everyone associated with NPEN for your commitment to and efforts in advancing the field of parenting education. I look forward to another year of chairing this vital organization.

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