Committees
2010-2011

• Communication and Advocacy
• Networking and Membership
• Professional Preparation and Recognition
• Evaluation
• Nominating
• Financial Resource Development
• Annual Meeting Planning
• Special Projects
• Advisory Panel

The NPEN committees draw participation from NPEN members and NPEN Council members.

Communication and Advocacy

Increase functionality, usability of website with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Actively and regularly engage the parent education community via our website, list serve and whatever outreach we identify.

Networking and Membership

Membership

• Maintain membership process by sending mailings to new and renewing members.
• Create and monitor NPEN Data Base.
• Conduct outreach for new membership in conjunction with other committees, e.g., welcome letter to each new listserv member.

Outreach to State Contacts

• Define criteria for state organizations as PENS and others on website.
• Identify and link parenting educators in each state.
• Encourage council members to assist in their states.
• Assist in forming or revitalizing state organizations, e.g., letter to new members of listserv re state connections.
• Encourage listserv participation.
• Explore needs and matching NPEN resources.

Outreach to Organizations

• Identify and contact priority organizations that are in some way providing parenting education or are related to it in some way and establish working relationships with them.
• Communicate often and arrange with council members to represent NPEN at conferences and at other events.
• Continue relationship with NEPI.

Professional Preparation and Recognition

Address NPEN’s role in defining, identifying, and providing guidelines for parenting educator competencies and in providing information about the professional preparation and recognition that promote development of these competencies; explore development of a national parenting educator recognition system within NPEN.

Ongoing work: Framework for Understanding Parenting Educator Professional Preparation and Recognition

Evaluation

Determine NPEN role in evaluation.

Needs in the field are: On-line access to good evaluation strategies in addition to well designed evaluation tools.

Communication with funders is also needed to help define across systems what is useful and possible for the field.

Nominating

Prepare new council member slate equal to the number of vacant slots on the board and fill positions of officers for the organization. Consider geographic, cultural, and expertise diversity.

Provide new member packet of information to newly elected NPEN Council members.

Recognize those going off Council.

Financial Resource Development

Identify funding sources and write grant proposals.

Annual Meeting Planning

Plan, locate and coordinate annual meeting with anticipation 2-4 years into the future, adhering to outlined expectations

Special Projects

1. International Relationships – Eve Sullivan, Amr Ghaleb
2. National Effective Parenting Initiative (NEPI) Collaboration – Anne Robertson

Advisory panel

Recruit, inform, and consult with the panel on issues and history.

This site is maintained at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
College of Education
Early Childhood and Parenting Collaborative