School Network Staff NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF PARENT EDUCATION
Job Description
JOB ANNOUNCEMENT
NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF PARENT EDUCATION
CONSULTANT OR FULL-TIME POSITION
Literacy Partners strengthens families through a two-generation approach to education. With our free classes, low-income parents in New York City – most of whom are immigrants – develop the literacy and language skills they need to succeed in today’s world. Our research-based curriculum also incorporates child development and parenting support to help parents boost their children’s early reading, school readiness, and social-emotional growth.
Our core program consists of two offerings:
- “English for Parents” classes in Brooklyn offered in partnership with early childhood education programs, and
- “High School Equivalency and College Transition for Teenage Parents” program in partnership with a college transition program in the Bronx.
In both areas, participating parents receive a home library of 15 age-appropriate books for each of their children along with coaching and support from their teachers to make reading with their children a regular habit.
In addition to these classes, we also offer a basic reading and writing course and English conversation practice groups for adults throughout the City.
Educational Media & Community Campaigns
In order to deepen our impact in New York City and expand to other cities across the country, Literacy Partners is developing several media projects implemented through community-based education campaigns.
The first project is intended for Spanish-speaking parents, based on the Univision telenovela, La Fuerza de Creer. This 5-episode miniseries tells the story of a community center and the families who rely on it for childcare. The story follows the drama of four different families and the childcare staff, revealing to the audience the different ways that caregivers promote their children’s early literacy skills, early learning, and social-emotional growth. The miniseries was produced by Univision in collaboration with Literacy Partners along with Too Small to Fail of the Clinton Foundation and Vroom, an initiative of the Bezos Foundation.
We are editing the broadcast version of La Fuerza into shorter segments appropriate for parent engagement workshops and creating an accompanying curriculum. The curriculum will include a facilitator’s guide and other resources so that early childhood education programs, libraries, family literacy programs, and others can use our content to implement a parent workshop series for Spanish-speaking parents on a “turn-key” basis. The goal is to facilitate peer learning in a supportive environment with a pedagogical approach rooted in popular education and parent organizing rather than didactic formal instruction.
The Director of Parent Education will work closely with the CEO, Literacy Partners staff, and an advisory group of experts and providers to develop, pilot, and assess the effectiveness of this approach to parent engagement. She or he will also provide strategic guidance to our existing classes for parents, but the main focus of the position is to develop an innovative parent engagement program for Spanish-speaking parents that can be disseminated to programs across the country.
The Director will also play a leading role in creating future content for English- or Spanish-speaking parents.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Design parent education and engagement workshops based on La Fuerza de Creer, refining the goals and strategies and piloting elements of the program
- Oversee the creation of additional resources to accompany the videos, including easy-to-read books for children and parents based on the content of the series and the goals of the program
- Promote the program to early childhood programs, school districts, libraries, and others in NYC and other cities
- Design and execute a training program for Literacy Partners and other sites to implement the parent engagement program
- Collect data from participating sites to track results
- Facilitate a national cohort of staff from participating sites to exchange best practices, further develop facilitation and assessment skills, and to gather stories from the field
- Disseminate results and engage peer organizations through conference presentations and other venues to promote the program
- Identify potential funders and contribute to funding proposals
- Advise on the creation of new video content for parents, leveraging your knowledge of parent narratives and best practices in early literacy and school readiness
- Serve as a member of the senior leadership team at Literacy Partners, advising on our core program of classroom-based English and literacy instruction for parents
Qualifications
- A minimum of a bachelor’s degree
- Track record of success leading projects of similar scope and scale
- Outstanding facilitation skills and direct experience in parent engagement, education, support groups, organizing, etc.
- Experience training facilitators and developing their skills across multiple sites
- Deep understanding of race, class, and culture as they relate to parenting and child outcomes
- Thorough knowledge of child development and parenting
- Great sense of humor
- Bilingual (Spanish and English) required
Competitive salary commensurate with experience and results.
