There is no “j” in family engagement. In other words, it’s a “judgment-free” community. Many members of the early childhood community are parents first.
They have studied the various aspects of early childhood education and served in several leadership roles. Most importantly, they are dedicated advocates for school readiness, positive parent-child relationships and the benefits of family engagement.

“When I was in graduate school, I interned at Ready At Five,” said Brigid Cook. “Then I started working with Baltimore City Public Schools because my heart was in teaching.”

Early in her career, Cook experienced the best of both worlds: teaching for Baltimore City and implementing the Learning Party curriculum from Ready At Five. Learning Parties are interactive, hands-on parent/child events that build parents’ knowledge of school readiness skills to best support their child’s healthy growth and development. Ready At Five offers a Learning Party curriculum in seven domains of learning: Language and Literacy, Math, Science, Social Foundations, Physical Well-Being and Motor Development, Social Studies and Fine Arts. Over the past 11 years, Cook has implemented learning parties in Language and Literacy.

“Each time they come out with a new one [Learning Party], I want to start implementing it,” said Cook. “Now I am here with one that I feel is the biggest need— especially now that I have transitioned out of the classroom.”

For the former kindergarten teacher, the stakes had become higher.  In March, Cook joined other early care and education professionals from across the state for Ready At Five’s new Parent Leadership Learning Party Train the Trainers training session. The goal of the two-day workshop is to build a cadre of local trainers who can provide sustainability for the learning parties and expand the reach to communities throughout Maryland. This training session will come in handy for Cook in her current role as a Title I Intervention Teacher in Baltimore City.

“When I am sitting around the IEP table, I listen to the parent’s perspective, the principal’s perspective, the special educator’s perspective and my own perspective,” said Cook. “These core topics they are talking about here just hit home for me.”

The Parent Leadership Learning Party curriculum also meets Goal Seven of the Maryland Early Childhood Family Engagement Framework: Family engagement initiatives should support the development of families as leaders and child advocates. Cook believes this particular curriculum is critical for her most important role as a parent of three children, ages five years, three years and nine months.

“It [the Parent Leadership Learning Party curriculum] will help me as a parent, and it will help me in my position partnering with parents,” said Cook. “It is going to help my colleagues as we are sitting around the IEP table or in special education trying to understand and come back to the core that parents do really care, and how can we all work together to make sure everyone is listening to the parent who will be with their child for a lifetime and work to help advocate for their child.”

Family engagement involves being intentional about partnering with parents, families, libraries, non-profits, businesses, government and other stakeholders. It also requires leadership and advocacy at work, community and home.

“When I started this, I wasn’t a parent; but I think back to those days when I would stand in front of parents and thought I knew what I was talking about,” said Cook. “I learned a lot from working in early childhood and at Ready At Five. As a parent, I feel more connected because I live and learn it first-hand and in the trenches.”