Leadership That Grows Together
Be Strong Families talks often about the importance of parent voice. But parent voice only matters if organizations build real structures for listening — and if what parents say can influence what happens next.
At Be Strong Families, that structure begins at the governance level.
Be Strong Families’ bylaws designate two seats on the Board of Directors for representatives elected by the National Parent Café Leadership Team (NPCLT), the organization’s national parent leadership body. Those seats ensure that parent leadership is not dependent on a single invitation, project, or staff person. It is built into how the organization is governed.
Christopher Thornton and Tecoria Jones came to the Be Strong Families Board through those designated NPCLT seats. As elected representatives, they brought the experience, perspective, and expertise of parent leaders directly into the places where organizational decisions are made.
But something important happened when their terms as NPCLT representatives ended:
Their relationships with the Board did not.
By then, Christopher and Tecoria had become deeply involved in the work of the Board — serving on committees, identifying opportunities, building relationships, asking questions, and helping shape the organization. Both were ultimately elected to continue serving as full Board members.
Today, Dorian Harris and Andree Redic hold the two NPCLT-designated Board seats, while Christopher and Tecoria continue serving alongside them as Board members. Four of Be Strong Families’ 15 Board members came to the Board through the NPCLT pathway.
That progression reflects something intentional about how Be Strong Families approaches parent leadership.
Parents are not invited in simply to represent a perspective. They are invited to influence the work.
And that influence extends far beyond the Board.
Parents with lived experience are part of the Be Strong Families staff. Through the NPCLT, parent leaders from across the country work alongside Be Strong Families as trainers, curriculum reviewers, ambassadors, and collaborators. They help develop and review materials, contribute to conversation decks, identify emerging needs, connect the organization to communities, and bring forward perspectives that shape programs and partnerships.
And Be Strong Families listens.
Christopher, for example, connected the organization to a corporate giving opportunity that generated new resources for both Be Strong Families and the NPCLT Café Seed Program.
Tecoria brought relationships and a funding opportunity from South Carolina into the work. She contributed to grant development around gun violence prevention Cafés and served on the Board Development Committee, where she helped review bylaws and consider how the Board itself could operate more effectively.
Those examples matter because they show the difference between including parents and sharing influence with parents.
The relationship changes the organization.
Parent leaders influence curriculum, programs, partnerships, resources, and governance. Their ideas help shape what Be Strong Families develops. Their relationships create new opportunities. Their questions challenge assumptions. Their lived experience helps keep the work grounded in what families and communities actually need.
At the same time, those leaders continue growing — building relationships across communities and expanding their own leadership through national work.
Neither the organization nor the parent leaders stay exactly where they started.
That is what Be Strong Families means by parent leadership: not representation for representation’s sake, but an ongoing relationship in which parents have real opportunities to influence the work and the organization is willing to learn, respond, and change.
What might change in your organization if parents were not only invited to participate, but were built into the places where decisions are made?