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Family Focused Organizing in Local Communities

In partnerships with local community groups and family service agencies, COFI builds parent action teams in local schools and neighborhoods, and pulls them together into community based networks.

Parent teams work together on local goals, and they help connect emerging leaders to COFI’s citywide, cross-cultural network of parents impacting social and policy changes, POWER-PAC.

Parent action teams have fought for and won a wide range of community improvements for low-income children and families like after-school and adult education programs, family centers and increasing parent participation in schools.

In the past year alone, COFI trained 184 parents, at fifteen local sites. Three parent action teams went door-to-door in their neighborhoods and talked with almost two thousand neighbors, teachers, community leaders, and students. As a result, work is being done to build a play lot for a school in Englewood, launch a safety campaign in Humboldt Park, and focus on issues of gentrification in Lawndale.

Over its history, COFI has helped organize more than 45 parent teams in more than 10 Chicago communities and trained over 3000 low-income parents to become civic leaders, engaging them in public life - many for the first time in their lives.

If you are interested in partnering with COFI around parent leadership training and organizing, please call or email us.

COFI does local organizing in Chicago communities like Austin and Cabrini, where our parents built the Austin-Wide Parent Network and Cabrini Mothers in Power.

We are currently working in the following communities: Austin, Cabrini, Englewood, Hermosa, Humboldt Park, Kenwood, North Lawndale, and West Town. We work in partnership with local schools, Head Start centers, and other organizations. Some current organizational partners include, Elev8, Family Focus – Englewood, Family Focus - Lawndale, Nuestra Familia, and Teamwork Englewood.

In addition, COFI has recently worked in local neighborhoods with Centers for New Horizons, Illinois Action for Children, the Pilsen Alliance, the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, and West Town Leadership United, and many others.

We applaud the work of these and other community organizations, and are proud to support their efforts to build grassroots parent leadership.