Dear Colleagues,
Today more than ever, we need solutions that translate into real economic stability for families struggling to move up and out of poverty. Economic progress has been far too distant for communities across the country. With increasing poverty rates and economic disparity coupled with historic institutionalized bias and constraints for families, a family-centered coaching approach provides an essential and systemic shift away from “managing” families to an approach that equips them to set and achieve their own goals toward security.
Family-centered coaching allows staff to partner with people and their families holistically – that is, with their full set of strengths and goals, challenges, and systemic barriers. Regardless of the type of organization and programmatic goals, family-centered coaching changes how families are served by adopting a family-focused mindset. Family- centered coaching broadens the dynamic from the individual to inclusion of the full family, including stepparents, grandparents, and foster parents as well as family guardians and champions. It recognizes that families change over time and offers flexibility for families to guide the definitions and process.
Launching Family-Centered Coaching
The Prosperity Agenda is honored to continue the work of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and carry family-centered coaching forward. We will continue to adapt the Family-Centered Coaching Toolkit and resources to meet the needs of the field and develop a meaningful community of learning and practice. Leveraging the expertise of Global Learning Partners, we will continue to adapt the Family-Centered Coaching Toolkit and resources to meet the needs of the field and develop a meaningful community of learning and practice.
Our long-standing commitment to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty brings a powerful purpose to our partnerships with nonprofits, employers, and government agencies. Our knowledge of the communities we serve and the challenges they face ensures that we are focused on the right problems, and that we learn about the complicated dynamics at play. By combining the power of purpose and experience with human-centered design principles, we develop pragmatic solutions that make a difference.
From Learning to Leading
Our vision for family-centered coaching is to build relationships through learning and collaboration. Success means that we have created an environment and a set of tools that can reflect your community’s values and goals. It means that we continue to coauthor a pathway alongside families. It means that learning translates into achievable leadership.
We hope you will join us on this journey to transform the way we engage and serve families in our communities through a family-centered coaching approach.
Diana Dollar
Executive Director
The Prosperity Agenda
The Prosperity Agenda provides these resources as the designated national administrator of Family-Centered Coaching.