Ask most parent leaders how they got started, and you'll hear the same thing: someone saw something in them before they saw it in themselves. Members of our National Parent Café Leadership Team share what brought them into leadership — and what keeps them coming back.

When Mindie Bentcik relocated from Iowa to Idaho in 2018, she looked for Parent Cafés and found none. So she spent years advocating until she helped make them happen. Here's how one determined parent leader and a handful of local, committed organizations brought Parent Cafés to Idaho for the first time.

What does it look like when Parent Cafés truly take root in a state? In Missouri, it started with one bus of parents in St. Louis in 2013. Today, hundreds of parents across the state attend Cafés every year, supported by a statewide network of certified trainers, regional leadership teams, and a university-backed training partner program.

We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with the State of New Jersey to enhance parent engagement through Family Success Centers. By embedding Parent Cafés, we aim to create supportive spaces where families can connect, share experiences, and develop strategies to thrive. Together, we are committed to empowering families and building stronger communities across the state!

How and why do organizations that serve families use Parent Cafés as a strategy for parent engagement? Often, it’s to create a solid foundation of partnership between staff and parents and among the parents in a program to advance other programmatic initiatives. In 2022, Be Strong Families joined…

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 a privileged white woman in a position of power and authority, committed to diversity, inclusion and radical co-creation, CEO Co-founder and CEO, Kathyn, was trying to sit this one out. “Let actions speak louder than words,” she thought. But watching the "parent engagement through a lens of equity" conversation cycle through the field for 30 years without moving the needle? Her response breaks down what economic, political, and social equity actually look like in practice — and why BSF stopped treating them as aspirational and started treating them as operational.

What happens when human services systems put policy before people? Kathryn Leigh Goetz makes the case for flipping the script on intake processes and putting relationship first — with a practical model from a Pasadena coalition that gets it right.

In May 2019, BSF's Board of Directors voted unanimously to amend its bylaws to give Regional Parent Engagement Advisory Groups direct board representation, welcoming four new members in the process. A milestone moment for grassroots-driven governance.