Laura Rice Stein Consulting, LLC
For Stronger Partnerships, Organizations, & Communities
Services
CONSULTING
Unpack with Laura your strengths and struggles in leading your school or organization towards your shared vision, how you are making use of key relationships within your stakeholder partnerships, and how you are understanding this. Following, develop next steps for strengthening your team and your partnership relationships for a stronger school or organizational community and improved outcomes.
ASSESSMENT
Who are the key stakeholders at your school or organization? How do they feel about your partnership relationship? How do they experience them? What do they believe are the unique influences impacting these partnerships? What are the strengths and influences within these relationships that can be built upon? What are the struggles that can be learned from? Laura can support and guide you in assessing this and more in order for you to best harness the collective power of your school or organizational community for the benefit of all.
WORKSHOPS
Through various workshops focused on social justice, just practice, liberation-based practice, and making best use of your biggest tool in your work - you, and more, your staff will be best positioned to effectively guide and support the individuals, families, and communities your school or organization works with and for.
Bio
Laura Rice Stein is the owner of Laura Rice Stein Consulting. She is also an executive coach at the Center for Racial Justice in Education and teaches as an adjunct at a doctorate of social work program and a master of social work program. With a passionate focus on racially and economically underserved and marginalized children, families, and communities, particularly in the public education and child welfare systems, Laura uses her 30-plus years of experience in social work and education to guide and advance individual, group, and organizational social justice learning and best practices. In this work, Laura brings a deep understanding of the vital importance for individuals, families, and communities to have a voice and shared power in the services they receive. Further, she critically understands the unique relationships and influences that impact the service user-service provider partnership experience. Laura uses this expertise to promote and build equity and liberatory-based stakeholder partnerships. In all she does, Laura aims to support future and current practitioners and leaders to envision and successfully implement systematic social justice and racial equity practice, supervision, program development, and policy change. In this, she brings her wealth of experience, flexibility, passion, leadership, and understanding that we are all lifelong learners in this work.
Laura is a licensed clinical social worker and licensed DOE vendor. In addition, she holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Social Welfare, a Master of Science in Social Work, a Master of Science in Education, and a post-graduate certificate in systems family therapy.
Laura is the proud parent of her 24-year-old stepson and 16-year-old daughter. In her spare time, Laura enjoys running, boxing, hiking, and standup paddle boarding. She also loves the visual and performance arts.
Insights From Critical Stakeholders: Parents
It’s understood that children have better educational outcomes when families and schools work together in partnership. Given the widely documented Black-White and economic achievement gaps in education outcomes, it’s noteworthy that many schools and educators too often struggle in forming effective partnerships with Black parents from lower socioeconomic communities. There is a wealth of literature that speaks to ideas for improving these partnerships from the perspective of social workers, educators, and other professionals. A critical voice too often missing in this discussion is that of the parents themselves. Therefore, my dissertation study[1] at the CUNY Graduate Center, framed in critical race and black feminist theory as well as theories of social stratification, power, and oppression, aimed to highlight and bring their much-needed perspective to the conversation.
This research, employing in-depth, semi-structured interviews, gave insight and perspective into the family-school partnership experiences of twelve (12) parents from the same Title I elementary school in New York City. All the parents self-identified as Black or African American, had a child in the same class cohort, and qualified for free lunch.
Thematic analysis of the data revealed two main areas of focus within the family-school partnerships described: Relationships Within Family-School Partnerships and Influences Within Family-School Partnerships. Further, within each theme, four spheres of relationship (parent-child, parent-school, parent-principal, parent-teacher) and four spheres of influence (on-site school-based support program; parent manifested belief in parents’ role in education; parent knowledge and opinion of teaching strategies and curriculum, and public education system; race and ethnicity) were revealed. These are pertinent findings as they indicate a broader focus to current thinking around family-school partnerships. In addition, the data analysis showed the commitment, knowledge, and energy that the parents interviewed brought to their relationship with and to the school. It also showed the constructive power that school leadership harnessed in actively seeking relationship and partnership steeped in honesty, trust, passion, and belief in and for the parents and families that they served. Further, the study supported previous authors’ contentions that family home-based activities need to be included in models and frameworks of family-school partnership. Finally, avenues for practice and future research towards strengthening family-school partnerships were also revealed.
The school and organizational consultation, assessment, and workshops I offer combine the critical components of these findings with my 30+ years of experience in social work and education. In doing so, I effectively supports schools and organizations in strengthening their ability to best guide, promote, and support stakeholder partnerships and the individuals, families, and communities served.
[1] Stein, L. R. (2018). Family-school partnerships and the missing voice of parents (Doctoral
Dissertation, The Graduate Center of City University of New York). CUNY Academic Works. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3720&context=gc_etds
