Ampersand Families has joined the Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI) as a fully trained Minnesota site! What this means for Ampersand Families is that we’ve dedicated our efforts to ensuring that quality parenting and lasting relationships are practiced within every part of our agency. This will help us ensure that the voices of our families, relatives, and youth we serve are at the center of our practice, advocacy, and drive for policy change.
What is QPI?
QPI is a national movement to implement system change within foster care, emphasizing the voices of those who have lived experience. QPI upholds three core principles to this work: 1) The most important service we provide to families and youth in foster care is fortifying their parenting skills and natural relationships. 2) Research on children, brain development and the effects of trauma should instruct agencies’ policy and practices. 3) As families and youth are most affected by policies and practices, they are uniquely situated to best evoke effective change.
QPI allows youth and families the opportunity to voice changes they would like to see in a system that has directly affected their entire family experience. By working with QPI, Ampersand Families can ensure the voices of our family and youth are being heard as we move toward systemic change.
What does this mean for youth and families we serve?
Our mission at Ampersand Families has always included leading systemic change that advances belonging, dignity, and hope. After seeing the principles that QPI is upholding, the decision to become a Minnesota site for QPI was clear. Both Ampersand and QPI hold the idea that the voices of youth and families served by the foster care system are paramount to creating effective change within the system. We’ve started this work with the QPI-MN by sending out Quality Parenting Outreach (QPO) Surveys to our clients. These surveys focus on gathering information about our families, youth, and caregivers’ experience with current policy and practices used by social services. Ampersand Families is involved with the next QPO launch this month!
Thank you to all the families working with Ampersand Families who have involved themselves with the QPO Surveys! If you’re interested in learning more about QPI-MN, please visit their website.
Olivia Garcia is Senior Kin Link Specialist at Ampersand Families.
