CWOP Graduates New Parent Advocates

Eleven new Parent Advocates trained and prepared to help parents navigate their way through the child welfare system were graduated from the Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) Parent Leadership program at the end of April. The graduates joined a cadre of more than 150 parents trained by the organization to become a resource for their communities. The graduation took place April 29 at the Greater Highway Deliverance Temple in East Harlem. 

ACS Commissioner John Mattingly, (center) poses with new graduates and the staff of CWOP. At right is CWOP Executive Director, Mike Arsham.

ACS Commissioner John B. Mattingly was on hand to congratulate the graduates for reaching this important milestone. Mattingly, who was instrumental in the development of the Family to Family program at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a major sponsor of CWOP, has been a long time supporter of educating and strengthening birth families to keep their children safe and at home when it is safe to do so. Parent Advocates play an important part in achieving this goal; Children's Services, in reorganizing the delivery of child welfare services in New York City, is requiring that a parent advocate is employed by all contracted agencies that provide foster care and preventive services.

A major benefit of the training program is employment, says CWOP Executive Director Mike Arsham: some 20 foster provider agencies employ Parent Advocates, and this number is expected to increase as Children's Services will eventually require that all agencies have a Parent Advocate on staff.  The newly trained advocates also find employment with community groups and in Children's Services Community Partnership Initiatives, where they become visit hosts, assisting families in being reunited.

Arsham explained that most of the parents trained have some experience with ACS: either their children have been in foster care, they are receiving preventive services, or they were in foster care as children themselves. "Over 70% of those trained who had children in foster care regained custody, and tests show that all had made gains in their understanding of the child welfare system as a result of the training," he noted. "They can engage other parents in a way that a professional cannot.  They can tell [a parent whose child is in foster care] 'I know how you feel, I've been there, and I can tell you how I kept my family together.  I've had this experience myself.'"

One member of the graduating class, Nicole Forrest, who works as a parent advocate at a foster care agency, says that she regrets not having had the support of CWOP when she was the subject of an abuse and neglect allegation.  "Though the investigation was unfounded, no one explained the ramifications," she says. "With the CWOP training, I can help others to understand the system and what steps they need to take so that they don't have to go through what I went through."

The CWOP Parent Leadership Curriculum started in 1999 in Bushwick, and is also offered at its other locations in Bedford Stuyvesant and Highbridge.  The training is a 6-month long course of study and service intended to educate parents about their rights and responsibilities within the child welfare system, and to engage them in policy analysis and system advocacy.  Parents learn interpersonal communication; navigating the child welfare system, including Family Court; how to help preserve and unify families; as well as job readiness skills and resume writing.