Engaging parents has long been a part of Project Cornerstone’s asset-building efforts in Santa Clara County, California. The project began in late 2001 with a twelve-parent study group reading Taking Asset Building Personally. The following fall, four parents from the group were trained to become facilitators and went on to lead several more parent groups, bringing the total number of parents involved to over 300.
In the spring of 2005, one of the parents that had been involved in a Taking Asset Building Personally study group came to Linda Silvius, Project Cornerstone’s School Partnerships Director, with an idea. 
In response to the bullying her child was experiencing, this parent proposed a program that would bring parents into elementary classrooms to read to students and conduct a lesson once a month. This program, the Asset Building Champion (ABC) program, now has three years-worth of lessons. The focus of the first year of lessons is on bullying, with the second two years focused on topics infused with the Developmental Assets, including honesty, integrity, and interpersonal competence. 
Today, there are over 1100 parents reading to 50,000 students across Santa Clara County each month as part of the ABC program.
In the fall of 2005, Spanish-speaking parents launched a similar program, Los Dichos de la Casa. Using bilingual and multicultural books, parents went into classrooms and were able to read stories that reflected their cultures in their native language, and use both Spanish and English lesson plans in partnership with the classroom teacher. 
Today, there are about 500 primarily monolingual Spanish-speaking parents reading to between fifteen and twenty thousand students per month. By taking away the perceived barrier of language through their involvement with Los Dichos, increasing numbers of parents have the opportunity to participate and become leaders in their children’s schools.
Though most of Project Cornerstone’s targeted parent engagement work has taken place in elementary schools, some parents formerly involved with the ABC program wanted to continue being involved as their children entered middle school. Five pilot book clubs were started for sixth graders during the 2008-2009 school year. Twice a month during lunch, each group of about 20 students and 12-15 parents meets to discuss the book they are reading together. Parents come up with lesson plans, and the feedback is extremely positive.
Though the number of parents engaged in schools in Santa Clara County through Project Cornerstone programs is quite large, they are led at each site by one or two lead parents that attends monthly meetings with Project Cornerstone. At the meetings, parents are able to debrief the last lesson and prepare for the next. The consistent communication has played an important role in the reinforcement of the asset message.
For more information, contact Linda Silvius at linda@projectcornerstone.org.
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