What We Do
“I feel very powerful to engage
and encourage my parents.”
Teacher, Detroit
ParentCorps partners with school districts and Head Starts to build a more impactful early education experience – one that centers culture and lived experience, engages parents as partners, and supports children's social-emotional well being – to unlock the full promise of early childhood education.
Our evidence-based program supports educators to reimagine family engagement and social-emotional learning. These are the two ingredients key to high-quality early education, and two areas where educators most struggle and need support.
Our results show powerful improvements on children's reading achievement and mental health. Together, we can reduce inequities rooted in poverty and build a future where all children thrive.
Get in touch to find out how ParentCorps can benefit your students.
What We Offer
> ParentCorps is available in English
> ParentCorps disponible en Español
> ParentCorps 提供中文服务
“The first day I observed ParentCorps Fundamentals training, I thought, ‘I have to take this home with me.’ It forces you to look internally and recognize how your own personal experiences impact your interactions with other people. It was exactly what we needed. There has been a fundamental shift in how our staff engages parents.”
Kecia Rorie, Operations Director, Starfish Family Services
Professional Development
for early childhood educators and school staff
Two or four day group-based
experiential training and responsive coaching
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Supports school staff to form strong, culturally responsive relationships with families and promote children’s social-emotional well-being – school staff engage in candid dialogue to examine their beliefs, reflect on the challenges families face, and learn the science of early childhood development in order to engage with children and families in new ways.
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Grounded in respect for staff's expertise
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Dedicated implementation support to fit into a system’s existing professional development framework
“I found it refreshing that we would actually talk about the role that culture plays in how we raise our children. At our school, we had West Indian families, we had Black American families, we had Latino and Puerto Rican families, we had Muslim families... and you really learned what these interactions between adults and kids looked like through the lens of different cultures. And then you found that the tools you were given on some level transcended that.”
Tom Sheppard, Parent
Parenting Program
for families with children ages 3-5
12-session group-based program
for all families as part of the early education
experience
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Supports families to build community and explore evidence-based ways to support children's development.
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Aims to honor families' lived experiences, culture and expertise
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Dedicated implementation support, including high-quality training and coaching for facilitators, materials, and guided approach to family outreach
“Friends School has helped me build a bigger vocabulary and find better ways to talk with my students about their feelings, identity, and sense of self... I’ve also used these tools to have conversations with my own child at home. It’s made me reflect on how I was taught as a student and what I want to do differently in my teaching."”
Shavone Hall, Teacher, NYC
Friends School
for children ages 3-5
12-session social-emotional
learning program
for ECE classrooms
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Supports children to develop foundational social-emotional learning skills – children learn to communicate and process feelings, develop a positive sense of self, and build healthy relationships
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Teachers not only build children’s social-emotional skills, but learn how to model their own social-emotional skills
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Dedicated implementation support, including high-quality training and coaching for teachers, materials, and more
What Sets ParentCorps Apart
Evidence-based
You can read about our proven impact on school attendance, reading and mental health here.
Culturally responsive
We know culture and lived experience impact how you teach, how you parent, and more. We work to bring these sources of knowledge into the conversation.
Collaborative
Ours is not an out-of-the-box solution, but a capacity-building model that includes meaningful collaboration and high-quality training and coaching.
Early childhood centered
Other family engagement and social-emotional learning programs focused on K-12 miss a critical window in child development. We focus on early childhood education to achieve the greatest impact.
Unique intersection
of family engagement and social emotional learning
Many schools use different programs for their family engagement and SEL needs, but we help educators connect the dots and tackle both of these important areas.