Genesis of Parent Cafés

One of our dear friends and seasoned World Café practitioners - Lina Cramer- sent us this story how the Parent Cafés started in Illinois and have since then spread to many other places.

"In 2005 I was the (very) part time Director of a parent leadership organization - Illinois Family Partnership Network (IFPN) and also serving as the Senior Consultant to a new initiative - Strengthening Families Illinois (SFI). We launched SFI - to build capacity of the staff of early childhood programs and child welfare services to build protective factors in families - as a central strategy for keeping children safe and families strong. One of our IFPN parent leaders - Jeffrey Scott - (who was a member of the statewide advisory committee) challenged us at our first statewide meeting. Jeffrey urged us "not to do it to families or for families" but to "give the information directly to parents - and don't dumb it down" "because we want our children to be safe and our families to be strong".

We (SFI) took Jeffrey's challenge to heart. But I really wanted a way to 'give the information directly to parents' that recognized that parents already know a lot, do a lot and love their children - but no one parent knows everything. We also wanted to acknowledge that most parents struggle from time to time. We wanted an approach that allowed parents to learn from each other in a respectful, organic way that helped them recognize that they are not alone.

In 2006 we began in earnest. We asked Lisa Lee (from the Bay Area) to work with our Design Team - parent leaders from IFPH and me - to develop a way to "give the information directly to parents without dumbing it down".
Lisa brought The World Café book to Chicago. She held the book up and suggested that we might want to create what she termed 'Parent Cafés' to explore how we all build protective factors in our families.
We spent several days with Lisa - developing questions and designing our Café process. We - our Design Team - all loved the Café process. In early 2007 we began piloting Parent Cafés at early childhood programs involved in SFI. Parents LOVED cafes from the start - and we were on our way. We call the cafés - Love is Not Enough. There are 3 café conversations in the series based on the 6 protective factors: 1) Taking Care of Yourself; 2) Keeping Your Family Strong and 3) Building a Strong Relationship with Your Children.

Parents wanted more Cafés and wanted to bring Cafés to their schools, churches and community groups. In May 2007, we introduced Parent Cafés at the first national Strengthening Families Conference in San Diego and instantly received requests from around the country to help other programs to implement Parent Cafés. At SFI we adapted the Cafés for teens, dads, grandparents, foster parents, and others. They have been translated into Spanish & Chinese (and possibly Mong too).

Literally 1000's of Parent Cafés have been hosted across the county. Many 100 parents and staff have been trained in how to host Parent Cafés that focus on building protective factors in families. Parent Cafés are recognized by the Administration on Children Youth and Families of the federal government as an effective approach for child abuse prevention. Many organizations and groups now use Parent Cafés as an effective means to build community, share information, engage parents in their childrens' learning etc."

Find more information on Parent Cafés here