Our Services
Leadership plays a vital role in uniting the varied knowledge, skills, and talents within local communities to promote equity.
At IEL, we work hand in hand with communities, teaming up with local organizations to bolster local leadership at all levels, driving positive change through education and interconnected systems.
To do this, we build innovative programming, experiences, and services to help leaders change education systems:
Technical Assistance
Providing customized support and expertise to enhance program and initiative strategies.
EL can support your work to change community outcomes for children, youth, adults, and families through customized data services. Whether you are a local community leader, policymaker, researcher, school leader, district, funder, or non-profit organizations, we scale promising practices through data, research, and evaluation of local, state, and national data and indicators to support local strategies and decision-making processes toward more equitable outcomes.
The Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program (RAMP™) is a high-tech, career-focused mentoring program for youth involved with or at risk of becoming involved with the juvenile justice system, geared toward youth with disabilities.
To enhance youth voice, engagement, and leadership within Community Schools, IEL developed a framework with youth and adults that believe opportunities and resources, leading knowledge and skills, and equity are crucial components of effective youth voice, leadership, and engagement. Alongside our framework, we have developed a Process for Youth Engagement.
Our accompanying protocols for this framework support practitioners to strengthen youth voice, leadership, and engagement within their schools. Through coaching and training services, we will equip Community School Coordinators with the tools and guidance needed to enhance their youth-focused initiatives. Learn how IEL can support your implementation of these practices.
Whether you’re new to the Community Schools strategy, need assistance to expand or sustain an entire system, or need to strengthen family engagement practices the IEL team is readily available to respond to your unique circumstances and co-create a results-based transformation plan.
Professional Development
Enhancing the skills, capabilities, and effectiveness of organizations through transformational capacity building for individuals and teams of Family and Community Engagement Leaders, Community School Coordinators, Education Leaders, Initiative Leaders, Youth Service Professionals, and more!
EPFP is the founding program of the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) and has for 60 years developed a diverse and collaborative community of over 12,000 strategic leaders to promote equitable education policy. EPFP™ is a national cohort-based certificate program focused on building policy, leadership, and networking capacities. Through EPFP™ Fellows have access to the entire Everyone an Advocate suite, including the Policy by the People™ synchronous modules, the Washington Policy Seminar™, and our FedEd blasts and webinars. Fellows will also have the opportunity to network with policy leaders, thinkers, and makers from across the country through this unique education policy Fellowship.
Through a three-part interactive module, learn about an open, inclusive, democratic approach to advocacy, coalition building, and apply your knowledge through a policy project. Earn a badge upon completion of a three-part series and a policy project.
Everyone: An Advocate™ is a policy leadership development suite of services designed to build capacity of positional and non-positional leaders to create and implement policy changes that lead to equity and inclusion. Using this framework, we help build key knowledge, skills, abilities, and mindsets for everyone to become effective advocates.
Youth Leadership – an exciting new professional development opportunity for youth-serving staff based on IEL’s Leaders of Tomorrow program. This is a 4-part Youth Leadership Learning Series designed to equip youth-serving professionals with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to effectively support and empower immigrant and refugee youth in youth leadership and civic engagement.
Immersive Learning Experiences for School Leaders. Earn a micro-credential through engaging and relevant 8-week coursework. This is an opportunity to further cultivate the skills, knowledge, and dispositions of collaborative and shared leadership! Our courses are designed to bring theory and practice together with equity and relational trust integrated throughout each course.
The Coalition for Community School’s regional team provides support to initiatives leaders that are responsible for developing and sustaining a system of Community Schools. Using decades of experience and the Building Community Schools Systems Guide, the regional team can provide ongoing coaching and technical assistance to local and statewide leaders focused on developing results-based strategies grounded in collaborative leadership.
Work with initiative leaders to design capacity building and learning opportunities for cohorts of coordinators
Role-based Networks & Causes
Accelerating the development of adaptive, collaborative, and distributive leadership through peer groups, scaling promising practices through the shared experiences of Community School Professionals and Researchers, District Leaders for Family and Community Engagement, and more. We support our Policy by the People agenda, co-designed by our networks, and provide resources for pressing issues from the classroom to nation-wide.
Led by the University of Pennsylvania’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships, The University-Assisted Community Schools (UACS) Network, connects leaders within the field to further advance UACS policy and practice. As a network they explore current models of university-assisted community schools; connect with faculty members, administrators, and practitioners to share best practices; identify the varying definitions and stages of UACS work; as well as advocate for UACS policy within current education and school reform initiatives.
The United Way Community Schools Learning Community is a peer networking opportunity for United Way’s involved in Community Schools initiatives; such as, a key leader in the community leadership group, an intermediary organization managing the Community Schools work, or a lead agency or funder that provides the necessary resources. It is convened by United Way Worldwide, local United Way’s, and the Coalition for Community Schools.
The Coalition for Community Schools Steering Committee (Coalition Steering Committee) is made up of members representing Community School practitioners and partner organizations that prioritize the growth and quality of Community Schools. It provides strategic guidance for the Coalition and is a forum for addressing challenging issues facing the steering committee.
The State Coalitions Network creates a space for local and state Community Schools stakeholders to connect, deepen their knowledge and skills, and advocate for supportive policies at the state level. While focused on advancing four strategies (stakeholder engagement, policy/advocacy, professional learning, and communications/messaging), they also inform the Coalition staff of the needs, challenges, and opportunities within their states.
Practitioners and researchers are encouraged to join and connect with, share, learn from, and collaborate with those in the Community Schools field.
The Next Generation Coalition (NGC) is an alliance built and led by youth leaders that provide a platform to dismantle systems of oppression and rebuild sustainable and equitable communities by networking, channeling, and training youth to create action and change.
The District Leaders Network on Family and Community Engagement (DLN)is a group of 225 individuals in district-level leadership positions primarily responsible for the oversight of our district’s family and community engagement (FCE) initiatives. DLN is a peer-driven knowledge network designed to engage members as both experts and learners through a national structure to support member capacity building activities. The Network is unique in purpose, function and design and is grounded in the belief that through DLN, members can increase their collective capacity to implement a systemic approach to family and community engagement, resulting in more consistent practice across districts, greater sustainability, and measurable impact on student outcomes and school improvement
Membership is granted exclusively to those who are tasked with oversight of their district’s engagement efforts.
An active network of Community School Initiative leaders that provides a home for professional learning and the innovative and courageous advancement of the field.
The Community School Leadership Network (CSLN) is composed of Community School Initiative leaders dedicated to providing mutual support, collective learning, and advancing the field of Community Schools. We serve as an active network of Community School Initiative leaders that provides a home for professional learning and the innovative and courageous advancement of the field.
The Coordinators Network brings together hundreds of Community School Coordinators around the country playing a key role in creating and sustaining school-community partnerships to develop the academic, social, emotional, physical and civic competencies of their students, and to strengthen their families and community.
This network is a professional learning community who connect and learn from each other, and have a centralized place to find tools and resources.
Events
From our annual gatherings–the National Community Schools and Family Engagement Conference and the Washington Policy Seminar–to skill-building webinars and regional meetings, IEL is known for its power to bring people together, from across geographies, contexts, and capacities.
Initiatives
IEL supports, fosters, and elevates initiatives that accelerate change at the local, regional, and national levels.
Youth Leadership – an exciting new professional development opportunity for youth-serving staff based on IEL’s Leaders of Tomorrow program. This is a 4-part Youth Leadership Learning Series designed to equip youth-serving professionals with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to effectively support and empower immigrant and refugee youth in youth leadership and civic engagement.
