The Alliance for Early Success is launching a second cohort of the Centering Parent and Practitioner Power (CPPP) Community of Practice aimed at strengthening the capacity of state grantees seeking to build authentic and impactful partnerships that are rooted in lived experiences and values of racial equity and shared power. CPPP Cohort 2 will kick-off at the Alliance’s annual conference, CONNECT23, this October.
The eight-month cohort experience creates the space for courageous conversations necessary to deepen the understanding, appreciation, and skills to equitably center the expertise of community members in policy and advocacy work.
Last year’s inaugural cohort concluded in July of 2023, and included teams from seven state advocacy organizations. Each team consisted of two people from the same organization—one person in a positional leadership role and one person in a community-facing role—to allow for practice in power sharing and to maximize organizational effectiveness. The Alliance’s own Mimi Aledo-Sandoval and Jacy Montoya Price also participated as co-learners with inaugural cohort members. “The CPPP experience evoked much introspection,” Aledo-Sandoval reflected. “It sharpened my ability to recognize and navigate power dynamics, while further strengthening my resolve to name imbalances that threaten authentic engagement.”
Danielle Davis, founder of Liberated Development and co-facilitator of CPPP explained, “Our goal is to facilitate a cohort experience where members are not only gaining the technical skills to take back to their organizations, but also the adaptive skills that allow them to truly transform how they think about and approach this work in communities.” Thelma Wong, co-facilitator of CPPP, added, “Shifting from ‘working on behalf of’ to ‘leading in partnership with’ creates holistic and true systemic change at all levels. We look forward to welcoming a second cohort!”
During the eight-month experience, advocates will have the opportunity to:
- Develop more personal and interpersonal awareness by reflecting on their own and others’ racial socialization and its impact on approaches to advocacy;
- Construct a more critical perspective and awareness of the contexts, histories, policies and practices inherent in the systems that impact young children, families, and practitioners; and
- Build a more intentional path toward trust, power sharing, and authentic and reciprocal engagement, and action.
The CPPP experience creates a community of leaders who are committed to reimagining how equity is embodied and demonstrated through the design and implementation of early childhood policies and advocacy strategies.
The CPPP Community of Practice is part of an overall strategy that aligns with the Alliance’s theory of change and Power Equity Initiative to build collective power in state advocacy.
“The Alliance believes that collective power is essential to achieving equitable and effective outcomes and it ensures our issues have the critical constituencies that make them enduring political priorities,” said Helene Stebbins, Executive Director at the Alliance. “Working in authentic coalition usually means engaging in new practices and breaking old habits—we’re excited about this community of practice as a place where that work can really develop.”
