PIC Family Voices Podcast Episode 17:  Why B8 Family Voices Matter

Emily Woodward PIC (00:08.312)

Thank you all for being here today to engage in conversation and talk a bit about your roles with the B8 and why your voices matter. Thank you, Leslie, Safiya and Stevie for joining us.

Emily Woodward PIC (00:22.424)

To start off, can we hear a little bit about each of you, how you became involved with the B8? Is there something specific that comes to mind that drew you into this work?

Leslie Ela (00:34.218)

Yeah, I’ll go ahead and start. This is Leslie. I, at the time, of being introduced to Kendra several years ago, we were kind of on the tail end of COVID. We’d had a wonderful nanny for my son’s first couple years of life and then when she moved on we struggled for about six months to a year to find consistent care. We tried nannies, we tried daycares, I’m probably on a list of about 15 different daycares that just never called. So I finally connected with one, waited the two months to get in and then eight weeks later they shuttered their doors and we were back looking for child care.

Our daycare director that we’ve been with for those eight weeks had connected me with Kendra, the B8 leader, and here we are several years later and I’m still connected to the B8.

Safiya Wazir (01:36.049)

Thank you sharing your insight, Leslie. And this is Safiya speaking. So I knew Kendra from Head Start program. And however, how I got into B8 is that right around COVID, I was doing pre-K pilot program with the Department of Education. And I was brought in, to be honest with you, I don’t know how I got into that program in the pilot program, but it was a very eye-opening process, bringing parents into this pilot program and learning their experiences of how our system is working with dropping off children and getting them set to go for their first day of school. During that COVID time, it was rough. So when I was doing that work and then in that transition of when we fulfilled the pilot program, then B8 came alive and I was moved on to that. So that’s how I’ve been part of it and been continuing my work.

Emily Woodward PIC (02:51.694)

Stevie, did you have anything to add?

Stevie Klein (02:52.388)

What interesting ways to start. I don’t think I knew that about either of you guys, Safiya or Leslie. I don’t know if this has ever come up in B8 so interesting. The way I got involved with B8 is through Sarah Fox, and she’s a heavy partner in B8, and she is the executive director of the New Hampshire Early Childhood Coalition Alliance. So I work for one of the early childhood coalitions, and as I was going on maternity leave, I wasn’t quite sure if I was going to return back to the early childhood work due to grant funding and just maybe a life transition.

So as I was leaving for maternity leave, Sarah Fox had connected me with Kendra and I had tried to connect with Kendra while I was pregnant. And it wasn’t actually until maybe a year or so after I had my baby that I was able to join B8. So I’ve been a part of B8, I think for about a year or so.

Emily Woodward PIC (04:09.282)

Thank you for sharing all the information, all of you. Why do you think it’s important for families to be a part of conversations where decisions are being made about programs, policies, and services? And what gets missed when family voices aren’t included?

Leslie Ela (04:24.409)

Thanks, Emily. This is Leslie again.

If a family is not involved in the conversation, then the services inherently are not going to be delivered or received as effectively as they could. Families have a lot to say and ultimately improve both the service delivery and the utilization when they can impart their voice.

Safiya Wazir (05:00.876)

So for me, it’s that some decision makers don’t see the problem and they don’t usually have the experience as well. So some programs might not work for families in practice unless we have them delivered. But families highlights the barriers that they see and the cultural needs and everyday challenges so that professionals may not know or always see. So families are the center to this and they make the impact.

Stevie Klein (05:45.572)

For me, I think of the quote, nothing about us without us, and that’s spoken a lot in the early childhood field in New Hampshire, as well with family engagement, where programs and agencies and even administrations should not be making decisions for families. They often may be disconnected or they don’t know what’s best. So why would we be making rules and programs and whatnot for people? And why would we just not bring people to the table to create things in partnership? It’s definitely a two way street.

Emily Woodward PIC (06:31.618)

When you hear the phrase family leadership, what does that mean to you and what does it look like from your perspectives as parents?

Leslie Ela (06:41.358)

For me, leadership can be so many things.

I think when I hear the phrase family leadership, leads me to believe this kind of separation between families and professionals or service providers. When in reality, many service providers have families, professionals have families,  families are ingrained in all parts of the community so leadership could be the type of position someone is in, it could be engaging in a group like the B8, it could be helping a neighbor, speaking up, advocating for something they believe in. Family leadership is just taking the opportunity to have an impact in whatever way feels right for that individual.

Safiya Wazir (07:36.33)

Everyone has a different perception of this. So for me, it means families are respected as partners and not just recipients of services. So parents understand their children needs and their challenges and their strengths better than anyone else. So their perspective should be part of the leadership and decision making. So I interpreted that as some of what I just said.

Stevie Klein (08:07.692)

I believe family leadership, much to what Leslie said, it looks different, especially for the individual. So often when people think of leaders, they may think of extroverts and, you know, starting the conversations and getting to know people. And yes, that is a type of family leadership, bringing people together and taking initiative or leading a conversation. But there are many forms of family leadership.

And even though we think of it one way, there’s definitely room for people that are introverts or kind of have those different skill sets. And no matter what type of leadership style a parent or a caregiver has, it’s important. And I do think that family leaders specifically, I like to look at it as the glass is half full. So they have all the skills that they need to be an amazing family leader. And it’s really the responsibility of the community and the community partners to support these family leaders in ways that make the most sense for the individual. So it’s very individualized.

Emily Woodward PIC (09:26.092)

We often talk about systems level work. From your perspectives, what does that actually mean for families and where do you see systems affecting families the most?

Leslie Ela (09:36.516)

I love this question. My background’s in public health, and so I am inherently a systems thinker. And when we think systems, we think large systems, but we have to remember that systems intersect all over the place. Family systems, social networks, employers and so when we think about how systems level work is going to impact families we have to use that lens. Where and how are families operating in their day-to-day lives that is across all points of the community, their kids education, if the parents are in education, transportation systems, employment, what is the employer’s culture, family systems, and it needs to be comprehensive because all of these touch on one another. One thing that I’ve seen as my kids have gotten older is their daycare schedules don’t always align with my work schedule. And I think that impacts to some capacity any family with children, that the schedules just don’t always align with the other obligations in our lives. And so it really needs to be systems level work is recognizing where the other systems intersect with one another.

Safiya Wazir (11:02.546)

For me, I was there once when I was working as a state representative with the system and collaborating with the state leaders and community leaders to make those bills significantly go either way. This method of work, it eye-opened for me that I was able to see how much of these work were affecting our community and our granite staters, and the families, the recipient of those, services, some bills were significant that affected families. So the turnout of a proposed bill, if a bill was proposed and the turnout was great, that means, there were, the needs were there. The needs were there for this bill to happen or to not happen. So again, the collaboration between the community leaders and the families that are coming and testifying on behalf of this bill was significant. And I was able to oversee things and help people understand how the system worked and helping them navigate the system along with being state representative and working as a case manager back then was tremendously eye-opening to me and navigating it all and bringing it to the table to best identify how this work impacted.

Stevie Klein (13:25.956)

I like to think of the system and system building as either puzzle, right? So we’re all a piece of the puzzle and we’re all different shapes, but we’re all equal. Or sometimes I even like to think of it as an ecosystem. So exactly what Leslie and Safiya are saying, where everything is connected to each other, something affects something else. And in my perspective and my personal perspective, I see this really affects families when decisions come from, I’m quoting, the top down. So when again, like I mentioned before, when perhaps policymakers or decision makers or organizations are making decisions for families, even if it is with good intent, it affects them the most, kind of from those, the top down type of decisions.

Emily Woodward PIC (14:35.416)

Thank you. I like your analogy there of the puzzle and how systems kind of exist on multiple levels in our daily lives and how systems level work is not just about one system, but how all of these systems kind of interact and shape experiences. Can you share a moment when a parent’s perspective helped shift a conversation or helped people understand something differently?

Leslie Ela (14:59.68)

I think back to my experience as a kid. I have a sister with special needs and back then things were done very differently for children who are different. And I remembered this kind of ongoing situation where they were trying to do hand over hand to teach my sister to write and she didn’t like it but there was not in the classroom there wasn’t someone there to say she doesn’t like this and they weren’t really listening to her. And so over several months, she stopped letting anyone touch her, which made it kind of a safety hazard in parking lots if we couldn’t hold her hand or my parents couldn’t hold her hand. But more so, it became a social barrier where she was not accepting touch for even play and engagement.

And so I remember so distinctly this kind of after a meeting with this school and her team at the time we as the family realized this is why she’s no longer accepting us holding her hand. It’s because they’re doing hand over hand at school and it just kind of clicked in that moment between the team at the school and us as a family and so we were able to redirect what they were doing at the school and it just changed a lot between the communication at school and the providers and then the care that my sister was receiving.

Safiya Wazir (16:53.36)

For me, when I was working as a case manager for New Americans, there was a lot of barriers between simplifying the process or teaching them how to navigate certain things. And it all comes back to parenting leadership. So it was just a simple conversation of, you want to be a leader to help others? And that’s the hat that I was wearing as a leader, as a caseworker, and as a mother.

And as a parent, these were all something that I was thinking while I was serving the new Americans as well in my community. The only thing that I was doing is uplifting the families and guiding them and providing the resources for them that they were unaware. And by just simply doing that, I was bringing their voices to the table and I was herding their voices.

Whatever that was shared to me as a concern. And if they weren’t able to come up and share what was going on, I was their voices. I work as an interpreter and I’m certified to do interpretation. So whenever I heard something that was not being uplifted to them, it was not being shared to them. I put so many hats around me that I was going above and beyond to make sure that the most vulnerable population is being heard and I would be in their houses and listening to them and bringing back the conversation to them and informing them about it.

Stevie Klein (18:39.56)

I’m going to share an example that recently happened in my greater Nashua community. So we work closely with a different coalition, more so teen coalition, and the director is working on building their family voice and their family engagement. She was planning this amazing event for teens and parents, and one of the families I work closely with in Nashua, a part of the Nashua Family Network, gave the mom some feedback on the event on the flyer. You know, the mom had suggested, well, where’s the time for parents to talk to each other, for parents to debrief? And then it was also brought up, for example, that yes, this event is for teens, but what about the families that have a large age range of kiddos? So yes, they could have a teen, but maybe have a two-year-old. So having child care not there could be a barrier for the whole family attending. So even these simple conversations that parents are having with organizations, just giving them feedback can really open the organization’s eyes and help them plan accordingly.

Emily Woodward PIC (20:07.214)

Thank you, all of you, for all of that. If a parent is listening and wondering whether their voice really matters, what would you want them to know?

Leslie Ela (20:19.53)

I would say how could it not matter? There are no dumb questions. All feedback and opinions is important. And I think that what something Stevie had said earlier about in the leadership, about standing up, it’s not about necessarily making a public voice heard, but speaking to other families. We have shared victories and shared challenges. And so when someone speaks up, they may be speaking in a way that could help others or standing up for those that are afraid to speak up and empowering others to speak up as well. Strong communities are built by diversity. So I encourage anyone to say something. 

Safiya Wazir (21:27.862)

Yeah, definitely, Leslie, your voice matter, regardless, it could be positive or negative. Definitely speak out because everything that we do needs somebody’s voice in there in order to help us determine decisions. I’m in the mix of right now doing a principle evaluation and trying to get feedbacks from parents. So the survey is going out and we will be collecting responses back from parents to evaluate our principal for our school. So and again, it comes back to your voice. If I do not hear from our parents or from our leaders that are receiving these services or their kids are receiving these services, whoever is receiving the services, right, will not give me an accurate data. It all comes back to who’s receiving the services and how is it affecting. For me, if I get a accurate feedback from the parents, this data will be an accurate and it will be in a good use. And it will be, allows me to determine if the principal is going to be, you know, getting their renews or will might have to make a different decision, you know, as an example that I’m using. It’s the perception of like your voice and your voices matter. 

Stevie Klein (23:06.048)

Yes, your parent voice or your caregiver voice absolutely matters and in fact it is needed. It is vital, it’s necessary to what we’re referring to previously as the system. So even if you are thinking about using your voice, I would encourage you to look for local grassroots organizations. Look up B8, see what is going on in the community. Look up early childhood coalitions because there is a community out there for you and there are definitely people out there that want to support your voice. And for those of those that may feel like their voice has felt on deaf ears, in the community, I’m sorry. And unfortunately, it does happen. But what is important is when you get stonewalled or kind of come across a barrier or you don’t feel like you’re heard, I think it is extremely important to keep pushing on. So perhaps you’ve tried to use your parent voice and for whatever reason you didn’t feel heard.

I would try and try again because there are people out there and we are out here to really amplify that voice and support the voice and make sure that every parent knows that their opinion, their voice really does matter in our community for our children and again for the larger system as well.

Emily Woodward PIC (24:51.348)

Absolutely, those are really great points that every voice matters. What would you like system leaders to understand about partnering with families?

Leslie Ela (25:04.824)

It’s an asset. It’s, I mean, families are part of the team and including them is only going to make the outcome stronger.

Safiya Wazir (25:22.546)

Well said, Leslie. It should be genuine and ongoing.

Stevie Klein (26:14.98)

My dream is for Family Voice to be a part of all decisions that system leaders have to make. And I do want family system leaders to know that Family Voice is extremely important, but for the authentic family voice and to build those relationships and to build those connections, it takes time. It takes trusted people in the community. It takes trusted partners. So if system leaders, you know, for example, are sending out a survey to parents every couple of months, my honest feedback is that that’s not going to do it. You need to be out in the community. You need to embed yourself in the community and embed yourself in parent groups and have trustworthy community partners to be there when you can’t be there. It has to be a side-by-side partnership, not someone leading someone else. We’re in this together and system leaders are very important, of course, and so are the families that these systems will affect.

Emily Woodward PIC (27:36.846)

Thank you all for that conversation. I think that was a really great conversation to hear about how everything kind of intersects and family voice is very important in these conversations and everybody plays kind of an important role in all directly impacting family’s ability to navigate the supports and care for our children. Thank you again, Leslie, Stevie and Safiya for joining me today for this conversation. It’s been really great getting to know you all and learning about what your group does and learning about what else we need for New Hampshire families to thrive.

Leslie Ela (29:08.094)

It’s great to be here. 

Safiya Wazir (29:09.891)

Thank you for having us. 

Stevie Klein (29:12.287)

I’m happy to be here.