After her English lesson, Anna Rosales rejoins her two-year-old son Manuel in a cheerful South Everett classroom. He raises his arms wide as the young mother reunites with the bright toddler with an engaging smile.

Anna has learned all her English over the past year from Edmonds Community College instructor Diane Riegner, an early childhood education specialist and family literacy coordinator. Diane’s classes fuse teaching English as a Second Language with parenting skills for Spanish-speaking moms and dads.

“This is a good program,” Anna says. “I have more patience with my son.”

Anna and other parents were referred to the program by the South Everett Neighborhood Center and Familias Unidas, co-located in a cheerful, one-story rambler. It’s both a welcoming space open during the day as well as a community nexus where people access education and resources.

Similar programs take place in Lynnwood and Lake Stevens, where the Family Support Centers are teaching a parenting program based on Marilyn Steele’s “Strengthening Multi-Ethnic Families and Communities: A Violence Prevention Parent Training Program.”
 
Facilitators take parents through 13 weeks of insight and problem-solving—everything from setting boundaries for adolescents to learning about the stages of development at all levels of childhood. The goal is to create violence-free communities, one family at a time, says Winnie Corral, program manager for the South Everett Neighborhood Center and Familias Unidas.

One year, she says, three generations of the same family participated in a spring series. They in turn recommended the class to a family member who was expecting a first baby, and both parents-to-be attended a fall series of classes.

“In this way, we see that word of the classes in spreading down the generations but also across the community,” Winnie says.
 
Anabel Gomez—whose children Jonathan, Fernanda and Jacob are 5, 4 and 1—says, “It’s helpful to have classes to help you communicate with your kids when you know they’re growing up in a language that’s different from Spanish.”

Winnie says there are not many such curriculums providing parent support and education to the Spanish-speaking community.

Providing the series of three classes in three locations costs between $40,000 and $45,000 a year, Winnie says. Some costs are offset by community volunteers as well as in-kind donations.

“Every single year, February through June, my primary focus is how will I keep the doors open on July 1. And it’s never sure,” she says. “The help we get from a Children’s Trust Foundation grant means so much.”