Meet Leah, a longtime partner and supporter of COFI!

She partnered with COFI on a parent-led project that COFI Organizer Talibah and other parents worked on to address the lack of developmental screenings.

As the director of a statewide community collaboration project, Leah collaborated with seven communities, including Englewood, to boost early learning enrollment. Englewood parents, armed with training from COFI, discovered that fear of stigma and mistrust of systems led some families to avoid developmental screenings for early intervention and special education.

Parents pitched an idea to Leah: with funding, parents could support other parents to navigate the early intervention system and the special education system to get children in their community the support they needed.

Leah funded the project and parents did it!

Fast forward to 2024: during a training with The COFI Center for Action and Learning, Leah visited Parker Academy in Englewood and met parents who were initially part of the project and were still benefiting from it!

“I got really emotional about a dad whose son benefited from the program and thrived,” she said. “The parent-led project in Englewood shows that with a little bit of seed money, families can lead and make their innovations last. It is a systems change success story. This is how things work when parent voices are at the table.”

This anniversary and Leah’s dream serve as a reminder of the connections forged through parent-led efforts. Change begins with a parent’s dream, and when they unite with others and partners like Leah, remarkable transformations can ripple out.