Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) has just launched Cultivating Respect, a program to address anti-LGBT sentiment in the nation’s schools. The program includes “training seminars for local parents and allies, empowering PFLAG supporters at the local level to work directly with their community leaders and school administrators to protect LGBT students.”
In conjunction with the program, PFLAG has also released a workbook on LGBT school issues, The Top 10 Ways to Make Schools Safer for All Students (PDF).
On the surface, the program seems similar to HRC’s Welcoming Schools program, which I wrote about last year. HRC’s program is aimed more at educators, though, based on what Ellen Kahn, director of the HRC Family Project, told me when I interviewed her for the above article. PFLAG’s program is more for parents and allies. PFLAG’s Director of Communication, Steve Ralls, explained to me in an e-mail:
PFLAG’s Cultivating Respect program is a community-based effort. Our Safe Schools coordinator will work with parents and allies to train them on introducing safe schools initiatives in their local communities. The program focuses on identifying how to build relationships and dialogues with school officials, how to advocate for school-specific policies and practices and how to rally other parents in the community to participate in the safe schools work. The initiative is very much parent-driven, and is founded on a belief that local parents, with a vested interest and more powerful voice in their own communities, are the most effective messengers in their own children’s schools.
PFLAG, with chapters around the country, says their program “builds on the organization’s prior work in schools.” HRC, though national, doesn’t have the personnel to support all the schools wanting to implement Welcoming Schools, explained Kahn. Instead, they will train local people and organizations to do the hands-on work. HRC will continue to maintain the Welcoming Schools Guide and its online supplements, as well as market the program and build national relationships to bring it into more schools.
I think there will be some natural overlap between these efforts, but it seems that with a lot of schools to cover, and various groups of people to educate, these will be complementary efforts.
