Parenting and the President - Part 5 - Effective Parenting Initiative

The fourth and most detailed feature of the National Effective Parenting Plan is a proposal for a multi-faceted Effective Parenting Initiative that would be reflected in the creation of a new Department or Office within the federal government.

Creating such government structures as departments, offices or institutes are common ways to carry out the agreed upon agendas of a democracy. The agenda being offered here is to make both effective parenting and parenting education national priorities.

This will eventually require the creation of such structures within our federal government as a Department or Office of Effective Parenting that will he headed by a presidential appointee who would be directly responsible to the President. That department will be charged with the responsibility for facilitating and engaging in actions that will create the conditions in our nation that will allow effective parenting and parenting education to become priorities.

Actions that federal government agencies customarily engage in can include bringing individuals and groups together who can further the overall agenda (a convening function that often is embodied in some sort of council). Such departments can also engage in research activities to create and summarize the knowledge that is needed (a research function that can be carried out through an institute), and these departments can provide training of various classes of personnel that are needed to actualize the agenda (a training function in the form of a center). They also can engage in a public education function by operating clearinghouses of relevant data and information.

The diagram herein provided outlines the possible structure of a Department or Office of Effective Parenting and the related councils, institutes, training centers and clearinghouses. Each of these will be described in future articles in this series.

The next article will share the history of these ideas, and our efforts to bring them before both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Important and controversial related issues, such as whether the government should be involved in helping parents raise their children, will be addressed.

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How You Can Be Involved...

You can participate by commenting on this and future articles in The Parenting and the President series.

You can become supportive through letting the world know that it would be a better place if all children were raised by effective and sensitive parents who receive excellent parenting education. You can express such sentiments through signing our online Effective Parenting Petition (check here).

And /or you can become a member and supporter of the NEPI, the National Effective Parenting Initiative.

There are three types of memberships available, each of which has its own series of educational benefits and involvement opportunities. Click on the membership type you are most interested in learning about:

• Parent Membership
  
• Professional Membership
  
• Organization Affiliate

Your membership dues are not only used to provide the member benefits but to also support the various advocacy actions that are needed to bring these important matters to the attention of the president and the public in general. This entire effort is of a grassroots nature and membership dues, and funds that have been contributed to CICC over the years, are the only monies that are supporting it now.

For those of you who want to make a financial contribution but do not want to become members of NEPI, you can support this grassroots effort by making a tax-deductible contribution to CICC.

Click here to donate.