Parenting Educators

Professional development of parenting educators is one of the four overarching goals of NPEN.

The focus of this goal is to help parenting education practitioners build their skills and the profession by addressing issues that transcend disciplinary and regional boundaries such as professional identity, ethics, standards and certification, training and accessibility. Both the NPEN Professional Development Committee and Competencies Committee are responsible for providing leadership in examining and addressing these issues. The specific intended outcome of the work is that NPEN will be the leader in setting professional standards in the field of parenting education.

The work of the Competency Committee includes the development of competency resource documents for both professional and paraprofessional practitioners and the design of a framework to provide information about existing types of professional preparation and recognition available for practitioners.  The work of the Professional Development committee includes identification of individuals, groups, and organizations who may provide professional development and networking opportunities for parenting educators within each state. Resources related to these products can be accessed in the “Parenting Educators” menu above.