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COFI Develops Leaders and Builds Organizations

In partnership with community organizations, and in independent projects, COFI provides comprehensive training to develop parent leaders, and helps them build organizations and take action on the issues that affect their families.  COFI's approach builds leaders over time, and is rooted in real-world organizing that the parents themselves define.

COFI's CURRICULUM

Phase One: Self, Family & Team and Team Building

Self, Family & Team:
Family Focused Organizing begins with the individual. Parents assess their needs, establish goals and begin to work toward achieving those goals. In the Self, Family & Team phase of the Family Focused Organizing model, parents attend an orientation session and six two-hour workshops. The curriculum covers:

  • Personal visioning
  • Self-assessment and goal setting
  • Building a web of support
  • Overcoming obstacles and developing an action plan
  • Family goal setting
  • Team goal setting

Team Building:
Coming together around a common goal is necessary in any situation where people wish to make change. After enabling parents to become leaders and set goals for themselves, COFI teaches leaders Team Building. The team building process can take between 10 weeks and several months, and includes:

  • Defining team purpose
  • Creating ground rules and team rituals
  • Establishing a meeting format
  • Planning action
  • Implementing campaign or project plans
  • Holding one another accountable
  • Resolving conflict
  • Evaluating the work
  • Winning victories and celebrating accomplishments

Phase Two: Community Outreach & Action

In the next phase of the Family Focused Organizing model, Community Outreach & Action, COFI teaches teams to reach out and build partnerships with parents and other community residents, community associations and organizations, businesses, schools and other institutions. Emerging parent leaders conduct a door-to-door community assessment, bringing new parents and partners into the planning and community action process. The teams launch community action campaigns, and succeed in making change at the community level. The Community Outreach & Action curriculum includes:

  • Community visioning
  • Self-interest and motivation
  • Relationship-building one-on-ones
  • Choosing an Issue
  • Building partnerships
  • Outreach and recruitment

Phase Three: Planning to Sustain & Ongoing Organizing

To be effective community change agents, parent leadership teams must determine how their work is to be structured and supported over that long haul. COFI's last phase of leadership and organizing training focuses on how to "institutionalize" Family Focused Organizing and create ongoing support for it. This phase includes:

  • Analyzing organizational structures and the roles of staff members
  • Identifying funding for sustainable organizing
  • Training advanced parent leaders as peer trainers and organizers
  • Training on policy and systems change
  • Participating in cross team and cross community organizing

How Family Focused Organizing Builds Organizations

  • Develops strong teams of parent leaders capable of giving voice to the needs of families in the community and taking leadership on important issues.
  • Helps organizations to develop and mobilize the leadership of lower-income parents, including single mothers, grandmothers, recent immigrants and women of color.
  • Brings parent teams together as a network, and links them with neighborhood institutions and organizations to work collectively to create a more family-friendly community.
  • Develops active local leaders to serve on the boards and planning committees of community-based organizations, helping these organizations become more accountable to the needs of parents and families.