3 Training Resources for Parent Centers: for staff and families

The Military Families Learning Network (MFLN)is a project of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the US Department of Agriculture through the Cooperative Extension Service.

For Parent Centers: These items were selected for their usefulness for your staff development and your coworkers and as parent resources.

  1. Keys to Establishing Trust: Seven Attributes & Three Exercises for Providers

A thought-provoking set of training exercises on establishing trust with military families or indeed any family or individual.

Training Exercise (article with photo visual)

This webinar focuses on beginning early for transition planning and how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) may help with academics and employability skills. UDL can make learning accessible for a wide range of learners. Many teachers use UDL without necessarily calling it by that name; it is really the application of best teaching practices for different ways of learning.

This training helps parents:

  • recognize what types of UDL learning engage and help their child
  • how to encourage and advocate for UDL use in the general class curriculum and in their child’s IEP.

Webinar on YouTube   

These on-demand learning modules may spark a fresh approach to your work, as individuals and as members of your Parent Center team.  Your Parent Center builds community capacity on a daily basis-but how easy is it to describe what it is and exactly how it works? Can we do it more effectively? Can we use community capacity building in ways we haven’t realized or explored?

The principles and practices described on the MFLN website have “broad application to families, communities, and situations”. We would add “individuals” to that list, as well as your parent center; there is a module on applying the practices at work!

  • Self-paced with interactive elements
  • Each module has a menu showing the topic for each screen.
  • Video or moving elements are closed-captioned and each screen has a transcript.

The training modules are free; access requires a registration on Military OneSource, which hosts the e-learning platform.

Instructions and link

We hope these tools enrich and enhance your Parent Center’s capacity for working with all individuals and families, civilian and military. Special thanks to Stephanie Moss of Parent to Parent of Georgia, who reminded us of the amazing number of resources at Military Family Learning Network.

Note: MFLN’s usual audiences are service providers working with military families and military families themselves. Some audience members are military-connected professionals (Exceptional Family Member Program and School Liaison) and others work in social services, education, and Health and Human Services-funded programs. MFLN offers Continuing Education credits for attendance at live webinars. Resources include articles, webinars, podcasts and blogs.