Milestones

Last Wednesday, we had more than 130 district parents in attendance (at our first Parent Corps workshop). It was a great way to begin our year as we continue to look for methods to move our parents toward getting involved with their children’s lives.

I have spent 23 years in education and have always felt that parents were the key to academic and life-long success. In one year’s time I have gone from a Parent Corps skeptic to a full-fledged member and believer.

~Bill Lamkey, Principal, Riverton Community High School, Riverton, Illinois

October 2003

● The Corporation for National and Community Service awards a 3-year, $4.2 million competitive grant to National Families in Action (NFIA) to develop the Parent Corps pilot program. The Corporation also awards a separate $.8 million contract to RTI International, an independent research organization, to evaluate the effectiveness of the Parent Corps.

December 2003

● NFIA issues a request for proposals seeking 501(c)(3) nonprofit parent drug- prevention organizations to serve as State Partners to help implement the Parent Corps in their states.

April 2004

● NFIA announces its Parent Corps State Partners:

• National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse (CA)
• Partnership for a Drug-Free Colorado
• Connecticut Communities for Drug-Free Youth
• Georgia Council on Substance Abuse
• Kansas Family Partnership
• Illinois Education Alliance
• Wilson Families in Action (NC)
• Greenville Family Partnership (SC)
• Wisconsin Families in Action

● Each State Partner provides three pairs of schools which agree to participate in the Parent Corps evaluation as either a Parent Corps school or a control school. The schools in each pair are closely matched for similar characteristics (school kind, size, population, and so on).

May 2004

● The Parent Corps trains and certifies its first group of eight Parent Leaders from Boulder and Westminster (Denver), Colorado; Stamford and Weston, Connecticut; Wilson and Wilmington, North Carolina; and Appleton and Kimberly, Wisconsin.

● The five-day Parent Corps Basic Training offers a full course of information about the importance of parents; that all children are at risk for substance abuse; how addictive drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, affect the adolescent brain; and how parents can form parent groups to protect their children. The training is completely interactive – trainees form teams, partnerships, and pairs throughout the week to process what they are learning, help each other make meaning of the content, and practice the new skills they will need when they return home to start mobilizing other parents into drug prevention.

● The Parent Leaders return home and immediately start meeting with parents to deploy the Parent Corps.

June 2004

● Parent Leaders are encouraged to recruit their fellow parents as members into the Parent Corps. Members receive membership packets and a wallet-size membership card. Parent Leaders’ children establish the Kid Corps for elementary school students and the Youth Corps for middle and high school students. Parent Leaders recruit students into these two corps to encourage them to make drug-free choices and as ways to recruit their parents into the Parent Corps to support their children’s decisions.

July 2004

● The Bush administration officially unveils the Parent Corps at a news conference
NFIA sponsors in Washington, D.C. The directors and administrators of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and NFIA, as well as a Parent Leader, are featured speakers.

● “The Parent Corps takes the power of community engagement and multiplies it with the power of strong parents to keep drugs away from our kids,” said David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which funds the Parent Corps, along with the Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America programs.

September 2004

● The Parent Corps begins its first full school year in Colorado, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. Throughout the fall, RTI International randomly assigns 22 schools in California, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, and South Carolina to a Parent Corps group or a control group. While NFIA recruits, hires, and trains Parent Leaders for the Parent Corps schools, RTI collects baseline data from a sample of parents and children from schools in both groups as the first step in a rigorous, two-part evaluation of the effectiveness of the Parent Corps.

● The impact evaluation will determine whether the Parent Corps is effective in reducing substance use among adolescents in the five states listed above, and the implementation evaluation will assess how the Parent Corps is implemented in all nine states.

● In spring 2006, RTI will collect follow-up data from the same sample of parents and children. The Parent Corps hopes to demonstrate a reduction in students’ alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drug use, as well as their intentions to use, in Parent Corps schools as compared to control schools.

December 2004

● The Parent Corps trains its second group of 11 Parent Leaders from Atlanta, Georgia; Walnut, California; Mt. Carmel and Riverton, Illinois; Kansas City and Topeka, Kansas; and Greenville and Simpsonville, South Carolina. These Parent Leaders begin working with parents in their children’s schools January 10, 2005.

March 2005

● An Illinois Parent Leader forms a Parent Neighborhood Group around community concerns about methamphetamine. Parents join forces with police to establish a neighborhood watch group to rid their community of meth labs.

April 2005

● Responding to parental concerns that driving restrictions and other penalties for drinking or drugging apply only to high school athletes, another Illinois Parent Leader helps parents create a driving contract for all students. Working with the parents, the principal incorporates the driving contract into school policy: no student caught drinking or drugging may take the behind-the-wheel portion of the school driver’s education program until having a drug test and certifying that he or she has seen a counselor.

● South Carolina Parent Leaders and parents hold “Smoking Bugs Me” events at their middle schools. Students at each school make and erect 1,200 white crosses on school grounds. The crosses signify the number of Americans who died that day from ` smoking-related illnesses. Children also participate in a poster contest illustrating why smoking “bugs” them. Many have relatives who died from smoking, including one boy who lost his father.

May 2005

● A Connecticut Parent Leader holds “Drug ID Night.” More than 150 parents attend to learn what drugs look like and see the kinds of marketing forces that expose their children to drugs.

June 2005

● The Parent Corps completes its first full school year in Colorado, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. It hosts its first annual Parent Corps conference, bringing together Parent Leaders from around the country to learn the latest information on adolescence and drug use. Parent Leaders explain their initiatives, share their progress, and exchange ideas with one another on building the Parent Corps and making it as strong and effective as possible.

August 2005

● As a new school year begins, enthusiasm for the Parent Corps builds, and schools and local organizations ask for new categories of Parent Leaders.

● The Parent Corps recruits, trains, and places its 20th paid Parent Leader in a Georgia school.

● As of this date, the Parent Corps, which offers its Basic Training once each quarter, has trained and deployed a total of 89 leaders, including Parent Leaders, Assistant Parent Leaders, Volunteer Parent Leaders, State Partners, and State Coordinators.

October 2005

● As of this date, 20 Parent Leaders have recruited more than 4,000 parents as members of the Parent Corps and more than 2,000 young people as members of the Youth Corps and Kid Corps.