The Parent Trust Fund

PARENT TRUST FUND BACKGROUND:

The Parent Trust Fund is a family civics initiative established through legislation passed in 2001. It supports parent engagement and leadership training to improve the health, safety, and education of children across Connecticut. The Parent Trust Fund provides funds to non-profit agencies and community collaboratives to train parents, grandparents, foster parents, and others to become skilled advocates and strong voices for children at the local, state, or national level.  State funding received by the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) will be matched by the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund to support the Parent Trust Fund.  The State Education Resource Center/CT Parent Information and Resource Center (SERC/CT PIRC) administers the Parent Trust Fund through its partnership with CSDE.

The State Education Resource Center/CT Parent Information and Resource Center (SERC/CT PIRC) is requesting grant proposals for parent leadership training. SERC, authorized under C.G.S. Section 10-76n of the Connecticut General Statutes, was established by the Connecticut State Board of Education in 1969.  The CT PIRC was established at SERC through a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education in 2006. SERC provides professional development and information dissemination on the latest research and best practices to educators, service providers, and families/community members throughout the state, as well as job-embedded technical assistance and training within targeted schools, programs, and districts.  CT PIRC is designed to be an educational resource to all Connecticut families. It also provides statewide technical support to families, community and faith-based organizations, and educators on school-family-community partnerships.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:

The goals of the 2011– 2013 Parent Leadership Training Grant are:

• To encourage parents to participate in civic life and to advocate for children in urban, suburban, and rural communities;
• To promote diversity of leadership in communities throughout Connecticut so that it is more representative of the population;
• To increase awareness of the issues that matter to families and the important role they can play as advocates and change agents;
• To encourage communities to expand the range of parent leadership training opportunities in the their continuum of services;
• To expand the number of communities offering parent leadership training; and
• To enhance collaboration and linkages among parent leadership training sponsors to create an integrated system of sustainable civic involvement within communities and across the state.

PLT GRANT ACTIVITIES: