|
Leadership
Training:
Teaching
Parents to Make Positive
Changes
(Courtesy of The
Bridgeport
News)
Parent
leaders distribute backpacks to Bridgeport
youngsters in preparation for the first day of
school. (Photos by Wayne
Ratzenberger)
You
don’t need a suit of armor, a Batmobile or X-ray
vision to be a hero in your
community.
All
you need is an idea, the passion and commitment
to be an agent of change where you live,
according to Donna Thomas-Bennett, executive
coordinator of the Bridgeport Parent Leadership
Training Institute.
For
the last 13 years, the training institute has
taught “ordinary” people how to launch new
programs, plant community gardens or create
better communications between the city and its
residents.
Consider
Diane Brassell of Bridgeport, who
cared about her community enough to want to do
something about the rising crime rate in her
North End neighborhood.
Brassell,
a graduate of the training institute’s first
class, of 1998, was unemployed when she started
the course. She learned about how city
government worked and how one person could make
a difference. Her career as an activist was
born.
“The
course was absolutely worth it,” Brassell said.
“It taught you as a parent that you have the
power to be a change agent for positive in
yourself and for others. At home, I became more
involved in my child’s life. Some parents have
the fire in them to advocate for family,
children and others.”
Since
her graduation in 1998, Brassell hasn’t stopped
advocating. Her first major project was to help
create a dialog between her community and the
city police department. Eventually, that network
led to the creation of satellite police stations
in neighborhoods, which had a direct impact on
reducing crime.
More
than 200 alumni
Inspired
by her training, Brassell became the first
coordinator of the Parent Leadership Training
Institute alumni group of more than 200. Once
she graduated from the five-month program, she
wanted to keep the spirit of change
alive.
“People
come ready and want to know how to be more
effective. They’re eager for it,” Brassell said.
“Everyone has a voice and the power to make a
change. If you think one person can’t, you’re
right.”
Thomas-Bennett
is as proud as a mom of her graduates. She
points to them as living proof of how people
with a little education and inspiration can
change themselves and their
communities.
She
highlights several effective projects
spearheaded by her graduates:
- Care
packages for women and families in shelters,
delivered daily.
- Transitional
education programs for Bridgeport
teens entering high school.
- Medical
services for seniors in their homes, building a
network among six different family services
programs.
“Our
program is not a typical class,” Thomas-Bennett
said. “We help re-energize and inspire people to
use their power and learn to network with each
other. We enable parents to become advocates for
their children and
community.”
The
training institute is open to people of all
ages, from teens to grandparents. In fact, it
now offers a similar program for children to
teach them how to advocate for positive change
in their lives, schools and neighborhoods. As
part of graduation from the program, each adult
participant must work on a chosen
project.
A
model for the
state
Funding
for the Parent Leadership Training Institute, a
division of RYASAP, an urban/suburban youth and
community development coalition of Greater
Bridgeport, comes from private foundations,
individual donations and state money. The city
program has become a model for the state. This
fall, the training institute adds People
Empowering People, targeted at Spanish-speaking
community leaders.
The
program has grown primarily by word of mouth,
with classes of about 25 meeting at the
Burroughs
Community
Center on
Fairfield
Avenue once a week
for 20 weeks. There is no charge to the
applicants. In the fall, the training institute
will offer a taste of its program with classes
beginning in January.
“We
like to give interested parents a ‘taste’ before
they get involved,” Thomas-Bennett said. “We
enable parents to become leading advocates for
children. They learn about civics and
democracy.”
There’s
been no shortage of women joining the training
institute, and Thomas-Bennett said more men are
getting the spirit and getting involved. In the
last graduating class of 22, five of those were
males.
“We
keep increasing the number of males. Both mom
and dad bring about a positive change in their
family and community,” Thomas-Bennett
said.
Ramon
Bulerin of the South End graduated from the 2010
class, and for his project he launched Reaching
to Achieve, mentoring children ages 12 to 16
about careers and their futures. In a
no-holds-barred approach, he met with kids once
a week to discuss a wide range of topics —
drugs, sex, school, and
careers.
Bulerin
worked his project in with his hectic schedule,
working two jobs and serving as a scoutmaster
and as part of the parent association at his
son’s school. It’s demanding, but worth it, he
said.
“My
training gave me confidence to reach out to
other kids with something on their minds,”
Bulerin said. “The Lord has given me strength to
serve the community in every capacity. I try to
do that one person at a
time.”
In
his community, he has confronted drug dealers to
keep them away from children. In his Reaching to
Achieve program, he discovered that a young girl
was being abused by a friend of the family. He
encouraged the girl to divulge this fact to her
mother, who was unaware of the situation. It
eventually helped the young girl to heal
emotionally.
“I
met a young lady who was in obvious pain,”
Bulerin said. “When she told me we both had
tears in our eyes. Now that it’s addressed,
she’s doing better in school, and her mother is
more involved in her child’s
life.”
Power
of persistence
John
Wilkins of the North End graduated from the
training institute in 2008 and initially
advocated to make multi-use trails in
Veterans
Memorial
Park on Park Avenue. His project
really never got rolling, but it taught Wilkins
a valuable lesson of persistence and the power
of networking.
He
tapped into his passion for biking to create
more awareness of biking safety and pushing for
the creation of more bike lanes around the
city.
“Through
the Bridgeport Parent Leadership Training
Institute, I was taught how to get things done,”
Wilkins said. “You have grand ideas, then you go
through the process. It takes a while to make
change, but you keep working at it. Even if your
ideas led to a dead end, you put your efforts in
other places.”
Wilkins
also works on a community garden on Charles
Street in the North
End along with his two children. “It’s
infectious,” he said. “You find out how to
become involved and how to make a difference.
There are a lot of organizations looking for
help. It’s easy to get
involved.”
Brassell
knows she’s become a community activist for the
long haul. Twelve years after her graduation,
she’s still working to close the gap between the
quality of education between urban and suburban
schools in the area.
She’s
involved in a program that provides backpacks
with school supplies for Bridgeport kids
heading back to school in the fall. She points
out that there are plenty of city kids who don’t
have the basics, such as pens, pencils and
paper.
Brassell
has learned her Parent Leadership Training
Institute lessons well. She points out that if
you make five calls to your senator or
congressman, they pay attention and look into an
issue. But people have to take enough interest
to call, she said.
“Everyone
that has a concern has the power to make a
change,” Brassell said. “I want to help close
that gap between suburban and urban schools.
Some kids don’t have much; it can affect how
they do on a test, if they don’t even have a
pencil. I want to keep working for better
education. You have a voice, you can make a
difference.” | 
