Lifespan Local’s Family Leadership Training Institute Going Strong During Pandemic
Throughout Colorado and across the country, Family Leadership Training Institutes (FLTIs) help families get involved with their communities at the neighborhood, local, and statewide levels. Created with families and for families, the Institute involves a 20-week training that integrates personal and child development, leadership skill development, civic literacy, and civic engagement. Each participant then proposes a project to improve their community.
Lifespan Local operates the only FLTI program taking place in Denver this year. They were also the first, and so far only, site in the country to host a virtual program during the COVID-19 pandemic. “It has been so exciting to jump in and make it happen. We have been able to support the State FLTI team, or other sites around Colorado with our experiences and lessons learned,” says Natalia Sullivan, Program Director. “There couldn’t be a more important year to have a space to help people develop their own leadership and understanding of how our systems work, all to the end of developing their own projects to support the community. The energy and stamina in the group are truly incredible.”
Lifespan Local staff launched the 2020 cohort in July with a virtual retreat and will conclude in December with a virtual graduation. Along the way, they have brought in an impressive array of local leaders to speak with the group, including Councilwoman Jamie Torres, State Senator Robert Rodriguez, and State Senator Julie Gonzales. “These participants are so excited about their projects,” says Armando Rangel, Lifespan’s FLTI Coordinator. “They’re collaborating with each other even though many of them haven’t met in person.”
Among the projects under development are:
The Forms of Memory: An Exercise in Multicultural Recognition, intending to create spaces to strengthen and recover the multiculturalism of migrant communities by recovering and learning about art as a form of identity.
The Unknown Effects: Sensory Processing Disorder, a resource for families who are going through or navigating the lack of resources for children without a diagnosis.
To support FLTI and the work of Lifespan Local, click here.
For more information, visit https://www.lifespanlocal.org/flti
