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 Home should be the first place where we each come to know what it is like to love and be loved, to feel safe and secure. Parents play an essential role in shaping the trust we have in ourselves and in the world in general. Sadly, for many children, their lives are filled with pain and insecurity because their parents are ill equipped to provide a loving, nurturing home.
As a Parent Education Specialist in the Parenting Support Services program, Rhonda Parks knows firsthand the importance of helping parents handle the most critical role they’ll have in life, raising children. Rhonda first joined The Children’s Place in 1986, after graduating from Kansas City Vocational Technical School. In high school, Rhonda recognized that she wanted to work with young children and joined the staff of TCP as an assistant teacher in the Infant Room. It was there that she came to appreciate that in order to change the life of a young child for the better, you must engage the parents. She not only recognized that important fact, but she found that she had a talent for working with parents and caregivers of the young children in her class. In 1992, when TCP started the Parenting Support Services program, Rhonda was asked to take on a new job as Parent Education Specialist.
For the last 15 years, Rhonda has worked directly with new and/or troubled parents, helping them focus on the developmental needs of their children and assisting them in being able to cope with their child’s behavioral or emotional issues. Many of the families she works with are struggling with a variety of challenges. Providing individual in-home services as well as group parenting classes, Rhonda works with families who are potentially at risk for abuse and neglect. These families typically have been identified through other program services provided at TCP or by another agency within the Kansas City area. In some cases, they attend classes because they have been court-ordered to do so.
Being the mother of two teens, she understands the challenges of parenting. Whatever their circumstances, Rhonda offers great compassion and empathy to the families she serves. Many of the parents she works have not had the benefit of good role models. The homes they grew up in were filled with stress, insecurity, and often violence. Rhonda’s passion for helping families is a driving force in her life and it is evident in the success she has helping her clients learn new skills to parent their children more successfully. With Rhonda’s help over the last 20 years, some of the neediest families in Kansas City have found new ways to experience the comfort of “hearth and home.”
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