“L” is for Leadership
By Janet DesGeorges, H&V Headquarters Executive Director, and Principal Investigator, FL3 Center
If you know me, I’ve been around for a while. I was part of Hands & Voices (H&V) when we were a singular entity here in Colorado. I have vivid memories of the first conversations I had with parents across the country (and later the globe) about what we were doing here, and ‘could it happen in other places?’ In the early days of H&V in Colorado, we thrived in a culture of parent/professional collaboration; the ideal and living out of the ‘parent-led’ organizational structure; and the audacity of coming up with a motto in a historically divisive field: “What works for your child is what makes the choice right.”tm
Now, after almost 25 years, Hands & Voices is still thriving in these ideals, but with 43 chapters across the U.S. and Canada (and Kenya!) we have learned over time that it was not just these ideals that would ultimately sustain this organization.
It is leadership. Parent leadership.
Hands & Voices has been talking about and living parent engagement and leadership long before the Family Leadership in Language and Learning (FL3) Center was founded through a visionary funding stream from the Maternal Child and Health Agency (MCH). Yet as Hands & Voices was funded to implement the goals of this competitive, cooperative agreement in the inaugural and then subsequent funding cycles (we are in year one of four years of the new cycle), we have confidently stretched ourselves to provide parent leadership, technical assistance, training and education to enlarge the pool and quality of parent leadership in the systems that serve us. We actively reach out to and collaborate with other family-based organizations and stakeholders who also understand and believe in the power of parent leadership as a mechanism to improve the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) systems of care. The H&V FL3 Center focuses a lot on parent leadership so that direct family-to-family supports to families (our ultimate mission here at H&V) can thrive through quality implementation at the state and territory levels.
Why leadership?
Back to our H&V story of growth. I remember when one of our early chapters was struggling to continue and I was confused about why. We had given them all the tools, right? We had shared the MISSION and VISION of who and what we are. We learned that was not enough. In order to sustain, we as parents had to build our skills in personal leadership development, leading others, and leading in systems engagement and improvement. Personally, I do not have a college degree in leadership, I had to learn it. I learned it through sometimes painful lessons and, yet, with a passionate mind and heart from mentors, leadership programs, life lessons, and peer-colleagues who lead every day. I felt motivated to do so as I realized that growing in my personal leadership skills would ultimately result in a healthy functioning organization and was the key for other chapters to thrive with parent leadership at the forefront.
Some of the skills that resonate with us are reflected in our FL3 trainings and H&V programs, particularly the H&V Leadership-to-Leadership Program and our upcoming FL3 Family Support Academy:
At the FL3 Center, we are a group of parent and D/HH leaders who all have a passion for leadership development in the work we do every day. We are thrilled to watch this new generation of parents rising in our midst as leaders of the work of supporting families, engaging and partnering with professionals, and leading in improving the systems of care. As a result of our opportunity to lead the FL3 Center, we are able to expand and offer training and technical assistance to the development of parent leadership beyond the bounds of our H&V internal structures. Additionally, over the next 3.5 years, we will be building our ability to provide opportunities for family leaders that are diverse and historically underrepresented in EHDI. If you are a parent leader seeking to build your skills, please check out the FL3 Center’s myriad of resources as we grow together. While we started parent leadership within H&V, we are bursting those borders to provide support to all family leaders from all family-based organizations and family leaders who work within EHDI programs. If you want to make a difference, we are here for you. Check us out at https://handsandvoices.org/fl3. ~
H&V Communicator – Winter 2021