How To Start a Parent Group

Here's How:

1. Find other parents of gifted children in your school or community
   • Contact your GT Coordinator, teachers, and counselors at your child’s school and let them know you are seeking other parents of gifted children.
   • Put an ad in local or school newspapers.
   • Let your state gifted organization know you want to find other parents interested in forming a parent group. They can serve as a link between you and other parents who have or will contact them looking for other parents of gifted children.
2. Determine a focus for your group
   • Parent Support Group -- Some parents need a chance to share their frustrations and joys of raising a gifted child, whether those joys and frustrations come from the school or the home environment.
   • Advocacy Group -- Some parents want to see changes made in their school system. Those changes may be in the their child’s classroom, the entire school or the entire school system.
3. Determine the geographical area to include
   • Wide geographical area -- covers more than one school district. It could cover as much as an entire county.
   • Local area -- covers one school district.
     
     To decide the area you'd like your group to cover, you need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each.
4. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of a local geographical Area
   Advantages
   • Good for advocacy groups because issues can draw parents together and unite them in a common purpose.
   • It can be easier to find interested parents with this focus.
   
   Disadvantage
   
   • Groups that form to address a problem in one school system tend to disband as soon as the problem is corrected or when the children of the original members no longer attend a school in the system.
5. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of a wide geographical area
   Advantages
   • Good for support groups since parents of gifted children everywhere share similar joys and frustrations.
   • Group may last longer as interests grows and shrinks in the various towns.
   
   Disadvantage
   
   • It can be difficult at first to find and unite parents to advocate for changes in school systems other than their own.
6. Choose a format for your meetings
   The focus of your group will help determine the format of your meetings.
   
   
   • If your group is an advocacy group, you might plan on the best ways to advocate for appropriate gifted education practices.
   • If your group is primarily a support group, you will want to determine the best ways to provide support.
7. Decide how often your group should meet
   
   • Meeting too often will discourage people from joining your group, unless you intend your group to be a short-lived support group. (In that case, a weekly meeting for a couple of months is not unreasonable.)
   • Not meeting often enough can cause people to lose interest. In addition, if your group is an advocacy group, meeting too infrequently will not allow you to get much accomplished.
8. Decide whether you will meet during the summer
   
   • People tend to lose interest in school-related issues over the summer months and also have numerous summer activities to keep them busy, so attendance at meetings tends to drop
   • On the other hand, some people have more free time during the summer months and so will be more willing to attend meetings.
   • Some groups choose family activities, such as an annual picnic, rather than meetings in the summer to keep people from losing interest.
9. Choose an initial location for meetings
   You need a place to meet initially. Groups start out small, so you probably don't need a large room.
   
   
   • Groups often begin by meeting in someone's house.
   • Many bookstores, including Border’s and Barnes allow small groups to meet in their store. They often have small areas with seating available throughout the store.
10. Look for a permanent location for meetings
    As your group becomes more stable, find a regular meeting place and have a regular meeting time to make it easy for people to find you when they are ready.
    
    
    • Advocacy groups that focus on one school system are often able to use school facilities.
    • Most libraries have rooms available for free, but they may have a rule about how many meetings any one group can hold each year.
    • Health care facilities and community centers sometimes have free rooms.
11. Advertise
    
    • Contact local newspapers and ask them to advertise your group’s meetings. Most newspapers have a community news section which lists meetings and community events.
    • Create a simple flyer about your group and its purpose (include the meeting time and place). Distribute the flyer in your local library, local grocery stores and any place else you can think of.
    • Contact schools and let them know about your group. They may even be willing to distribute your flyer.

Tips:

1. If you can, start your group with a partner. Starting a group is rather labor intensive, so sharing the work load can make things much easier. If you don't know anyone initially to start a group with, talk to the people you find through step one. You might find several people that way.
   
   
2. If you decide to focus on being a parent support group, you should realized that many parents won’t feel comfortable talking about their frustrations if the group is also open to educators. Advocacy groups, however, are more effective if they are open to educators.
   
   
3. If you choose to start a support group, you need to be careful that your meetings don't turn into complaint sessions. Not only is that unproductive, it is also deadly to the growth of a parent group.
   
   
4. If you start a support group, think about having a different topic of discussion for each meeting. People are more likely to be drawn by a specific topic (i.e. gifted and ADHD) than by a general notice of a group meeting. Having a topic for each meeting can help you plan your advocacy efforts or help you learn about giftedness and gifted education.
   
   
5. Don’t feel as though you must be an expert on everything related to gifted children. You can learn along with those who attend your meetings. Prepare for meetings by reading about the topic chosen for that meeting, and if you can, bring copies of one piece to distribute to those who attend. If that's not possible, simply bring a list of suggested articles or books to read, along with where to find them (a Web address, for example).