Our Blog
Get plugged into the latest Be Strong Families news, initiatives, and blog articles — all central to creating transformative conversations that nurture the spirit of family, promote well-being and prevent violence.
More Blogs
Celebrating our Strengths and Building Equity Leadership
Be Strong Families staff and board came together for an in-person retreat October 19 and 20 in Lake County, IL. This is the first in-person staff-board retreat we have held in more than 6 years. The theme was “Be Strong Together: Celebrating our Strengths and Building Equity Leadership.”
Conversations for Your Thanksgiving Table
Gobble Gobble ya’ll: it’s the time of year again when families get together to eat, drink, watch football and parades, celebrate gratitude, and often, unfortunately … argue! Be Strong Families has a plan for that!
Sustaining Your Parent Cafés
Are you part of a robust Parent Café effort with a dynamic team of parents leading the Cafés and seats filled regularly? Is funding for your effort slated to expire? Be Strong Families would like to assist with ensuring that your Café effort continues to thrive. We want to be your partner in sustaining Cafés and will be available to collaborate on fundraising activities, evaluation efforts, and promotion. Let us know what you need…
New Protective Factors Resource for Children and the Adults Who Love Them
Be Strong Families is publishing an exciting new resource to assist parents with building Protective Factors with their children and in their families: it’s a coloring and activity book. It’s part of our Living the Protective Factors series — in it 5 children from very diverse cultural backgrounds navigate a week in their life building Protective Factors as they go…
Transitions at Be Strong Families
Since our last Revitalizer on May 4, we welcomed one new staff Taniella Bailey as Illinois DCFS Youth Advisory Board Program Coordinator, and two new members of the board of directors Joanne Kelly and Jimmy Wambua.
Why Parent Cafés? Spotlight on Help Me Grow and Goal Concordant Care
How and why do organizations that serve families use Parent Cafés as a strategy for parent engagement? Often, it’s to create a solid foundation of partnership between staff and parents and among the parents in a program to advance other programmatic initiatives. In 2022, Be Strong Families joined…
Transitions at Be Strong Families
Since our last Revitalizer on March 3, we welcomed new staff Tyriniesha Anderson and Beth Lakier; farewelled Alexandra James-Okochi and Corina Hoenshell. In addition, 5 of our staff had promotions, they are: Laura Smalley, Letechia Holmes, Sarita Sashington, Robyn Harvey, and Tiffany Murphy.
Real Talk about Equity and Non-Profit Financial Administration
Be Strong Families has charged itself with doing the work it takes to be an organization that promotes equity in everything we do and as part of who we are. We know that part of equity leadership is consciousness — the value of centering equity, the desire to lead equitably. Part of equity leadership is creating a culture of inclusion and minding how we relate to each other; part of equity leadership is hardwired into policy.
The Equity of the Human Experience
Be Strong Families is an organization focused on building trust. We do this by valuing shared experiences and committing to human-centered practices.
LGBTQIA+ Initiative Progress Update
We made promises as part of our annual Show Your Love for Families fundraising campaign last December and we are working hard to fulfill them. Consistent with our commitment to racial equity and EDI and in response to requests from partners for resources to assist in meeting the needs of LGBTQIA+ BIPOC families, we said we would partner with people with lived experiences and experts in LGBTQIA+ organizations to expand our products and services. There are three main areas we’ve been working on…
Are you part of a robust Parent Café effort with a dynamic team of parents leading the Cafés and seats filled regularly? Is funding for your effort slated to expire? Be Strong Families would like to assist with ensuring that your Café effort continues to thrive. We want to be your partner in sustaining Cafés and will be available to collaborate on fundraising activities, evaluation efforts, and promotion. Let us know what you need…