The congregation of Ascension Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota is a diverse mix of African, African American, Caucasian, and Latino members. The Latino population is a growing group of young families; the church currently has 450 registered families and estimates that close to 400 individuals in the church speak Spanish.
Responding to the growing Latino population, the church saw a need to assist Spanish-speaking parents with navigating parenting in a new culture. “We knew we wanted to offer something for our parents in the way of enhancing parent-child interaction,” says Anne Attea, Pastoral Associate at Ascension Church. “Especially with the immigrant and any non-English-speaking community, parents are intimidated by school systems. Intimidated because you’re not only learning the language, but you have to learn about parent conferences and helping with homework and all that.”
To address these issues, Ascension Church began offering workshops from the Parenting Partners program, which uses the Developmental Assets in its approach, in Spanish. The congregation got involved with the Parenting Partners curriculum through an invitation from Search Institute to help with a project targeting parent engagement in school success.
Now starting their third group of workshops this fall, the congregation has reacted very well to the introduction of the Parenting Partners program, with twelve to fifteen parents participating in each class. According to parent facilitator Hernando Escamilla, “Parents involved in the first groups are inviting other parents to get involved too.”
The curriculum covers topics like communication, boundaries, discipline, and academic success. “The program highlights the negative images we tell our kids, like ‘just sit down and be quiet,’” says Attea. “The parents learn how to say something else that would be more positive. That’s been very helpful.”
The parents have enjoyed getting to discuss their own experiences with parenting and how they were treated when they were kids. “The favorite part for the parents is when they interact with other people during the activities,” says Escamilla. Getting to discuss their feelings and express their emotions about what is going on in their lives has been particularly popular with the parents.
When working with non-English-speaking populations, Attea advises people to be flexible and change the materials to suit the language they use—not just translate them. “Our congregation is mostly Mexican, but we have Central Americans and people from South America. So even something that might become common language-wise or culturally with the Mexicans may be different with the folks from other countries, so everything has to be adaptable.”
The church has heard from the parents and children that the program is making a difference. “At the end of the program, we ask questions about what they think about the workshops and a couple of parents have said ‘it just changed my life’ and we see it in the kids,” says Escamilla. “I just talked to one of the girls and she said her parents are doing things a lot differently now. They don’t yell or say bad words. I’m pretty sure with this kind of program people make changes in their lives.”
The Parenting Partners curriculum is helping Ascension make their church a better place for kids to grow up through educating parents and building Developmental Assets.
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