Parent University

Today is the kickoff of Parent University at Indiana Stamp. Indiana Stamp has agreed to be our pilot location for this project, and at noon today I'll be speaking to two groups of workers in this 40 employee facility during their lunch hour. We're going to talk about Say Yes to No, the first six "courses" at Parent University, and invite them to join us. If we meet with good reviews from workers, we (meaning Great KIDS make Great COMMUNITIES and the Chamber of Commerce) are going to take this concept to other businesses, and we hope to launch a number of Parent Universities around the area. The Chamber's thought in working on developing this was: schools have a "captive audience" of students every day for 180 days. Workplaces similarly, have "captive audiences" of parents for hours a day, for the better part of an average year. That being said, families that function better lead to more productive workers; workers who have less absenteeism, who are more focused on the job (versus waiting for the school to call, worrying about what's next, etc.) and therefore have higher levels of safety. This makes the workplace more productive. Pulling these thoughts together led to: in order to have more productivity, what if businesses made an investment in the lives of their workers through education and training opportunities not just about the workplace, but how to take their parenting abilities to the "next level." Parent University was birthed out of these ideas.

I really hope this goes well, and that others are excited as I am about Parent University!