When healthy food costs more, takes longer to prepare, and is harder to find, the burden can't rest on parents alone. We explore what family support organizations and early childhood centers are doing to step up as partners in nutritional equity, from two-generation cooking classes to school meal advocacy.

United Planning Organization (UPO), based in Washington D.C., are dedicated to being change agents by offering services in early education, youth, community wellness, and more to the community that surrounds them. UPO shares what happened when they brought Parent Cafés to their community — including 98% of participants saying they'd recommend it to a friend and an Early Intervention Program that liked it so much they adopted the model.

As the creators of the Parent Cafés, Be Strong Families is excited to announce that the California Department of Education recently added “expanding parental knowledge of child development through Parent Cafés” as one of the top strategies under their nearly $11 million federal Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG B—5), previously announced on January 16, 2019. This announcement follows the inauguration of Dr. Nadine Burke Harris as California’s first Surgeon General. We are longtime admirers of Dr. Burke Harris’s work, including her 2015 TED Talk, “How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime.”

Maryville Academy has launched Parent Cafés in Chicago's Austin neighborhood, offering families dinner, childcare, and a safe space for peer-to-peer connection. Here's how the Augustus Tolton Peace Center is becoming a hub for family strengthening.

In November, BSF's Katthe traveled to Nairobi to participate in Harambee Toto — a collective impact initiative focused on early childhood education, community development, and Parent Cafés in Kibera. The trip's centerpiece was a full cultural adaptation of the café model, now called Kikao Cha Wazazi — the sitting of the parents.