While moving toward our vision, Rise works to ensure that parents involved in the system right now have the support of a trained, life-experienced Parent Advocate. During the last program year, Rise trained two cohorts of Parent Advocates hired to work at New York City foster and preventive agencies, graduating a total of 12 Parent Advocates. Rise also hosted online support circles for graduates to continue to engage in peer support and build their resource networks.

We are excited to welcome nine Parent Advocates who will begin the fall 2022 Parent Advocate Training next week. The training will run for four weeks and will support Parent Advocates at Catholic Guardian Services, Center for Family Representation, Children’s Aid, Coalition for Hispanic Family Services, Independent Support Services, New York Foundling, Rising Ground and SCO Family of Services.

The training equips Parent Advocates with knowledge, resources, skills and peer relationships to support parents involved in the system with:

• Navigating the system to reunify more quickly
• Navigating the trauma and emotions of their case
• Strengthening self-advocacy skills
• Building a support network and connections to resources—so that once families are reunified, they do not re-enter the system 

It also strengthens newly-hired Parent Advocates’ understanding of their core responsibilities and builds their skills to address conflicts and challenges they may experience in their role.

>> Download the Parent Advocate Training 2022 Program Report. 
>> Read our FAQ about the Parent Advocate Training Program.