It Takes a Village to Advance Student Parent Systems Change

It takes a village… to do almost anything. While this common wisdom usually applies to raising a child, it also fits when considering policy and systems change to support student parents’ success in higher education.

Student parents sit at the center of a unique Venn diagram of many organizations’ missions. Examine the data and they will likely reveal stories of student parents navigating multiple systems across multiple communities. Consider a day in the life of someone who is both parenting a child and pursuing a degree or credential—how many systems might they touch? Both parent and child will navigate an education system, maybe arriving via a transportation system or an internet-based platform. They’re likely to interact with the child care system. The parent may work part-time or otherwise participate in the labor market. They may interact with systems supporting their basic needs by providing access to food and housing.

Creating policy change to support student parent success is inherently collective and collaborative work. Through this lens, the communities serving student parents connect, the work intersects, and we impact student parents and each other in a dynamic ecosystem of policy, practice, and experience.

Meaningful policy change supporting student parent success requires that we share information from the diverse perspectives and expertise we hold. Of course, those closest to the need have the most credible perspective on this work’s definition and scope. Student parents themselves will light and lead the way toward meaningful policy change. But to illuminate the whole path of impact as we walk it, context and information must be built collaboratively. We must work together toward our shared interests and goals. But how?

Moving from Silos to Solidarity

Social change efforts like this one can be mapped along Deepa Iyer’s Social Change Ecosystem framework. As she illustrates, we each play one or more roles when engaging in this type of collective action. Individuals and organizations must consider what roles they assume and how they interact—be it as storytellers, disruptors, caregivers, visionaries, or something else. Iyer prompts mission-driven organizations to reflect on what it might look like to move “from silos to solidarity.”

So, how might we surface the shared interests, goals, and responsibilities that unite us in this inherently collective work of policy change for student parents? How might we solidify such collaboration? A valuable first step is identifying the perspectives we each hold in our approach to working with and supporting student parents.

The organizations and individuals working in this space have developed immense expertise, resulting in valuable insights from research conducted, testimonials of lived experience, connections and engagement with knowledgeable decision makers, and best institutional practices. We benefit from coming together and learning from each others’ perspectives– something that seems clear and obvious to one colleague might be blurred or invisible to another working in a different sphere. Sharing insights could be the difference between making a meaningful impact in student parents’ lives and filing away a completed but disconnected initiative.

Next Steps

What perspective do you bring to the table, and how can you help others use your lens? Here are a few questions to consider:

• What skillsets are you eager to contribute to this effort?
• What questions do you have and what insights can you share?
• What opportunities for meaningful impact are you positioned to act on?
• How can you help others understand the timing and support necessary to effectively seize these opportunities for change?

When we acknowledge the silos that we traditionally operate within, we become free to operate differently. We can choose to connect with each other and create the powerful collective momentum necessary for change. We can choose to clarify our collective resources and opportunities. We can choose to intentionally and strategically coordinate our work to maximize meaningful impact. And we can do this from our perspective as:

What other perspectives would you add? How do you define and share your perspective as a stakeholder in this work? Do you hold multiple perspectives? Given what you can see, what excites you? What intimidates you? What are you motivated to learn from?

As we move forward in this work, let’s choose to acknowledge our diverse perspectives and their accompanying blind spots. Let’s model this practice of sharing these perspectives and coordinating with each other for successful systems change. Let’s co-create a village, an intentional ecosystem of actors united in centering student parents as beneficiaries of stronger, more interconnected, and collaborative policymaking and practice.