The Minnesota Parent Leadership Network began as a vision during a historical Parent Leadership Summit held in October of 2000, sponsored by MACMH, PACER and the Minnesota Department of Human Services. From this meeting emerged a group of dedicated parent leaders from across the state who continued to meet to define and develop a vision and mission of what became the Minnesota Parent Leadership Network.

The structure of the network consists of a Board of Directors, regional and ethnic community representatives, a Project Assistant, technical support from the Department of Human Services and a fiscal host agency for our federal block grant. Beyond the structure, it is the passion, dedication and commitment of the organization that drives those who are involved.

The needs of parent leaders are what drive our network. At the Leadership Summit, parent leaders identified issues and needs in their leadership work as well as strategies to meet those needs. Overall, parent leaders felt unsupported in their work and lacked training and credibility. To achieve that, attendees of the summit felt that a Network designed to offer support and training, as well as a mechanism to connect leaders across the state, would meet many of their needs. Additionally, a state-wide organization would bring credibility to their work and could in turn offer assistance to those professionals with whom they partner.

The MPLN is a coalition of parent leaders who have children with mental health needs. By working together, we connect and support other parent leaders.

The MPLN website is sponsored by a grant from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS). However, DHS will not be involved in and takes no responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the MLPN website.

Any DHS staff member's participation in website discussions of operations is done on their own as a parent leader and not in their official capacity as an employee of DHS. Statements expressed on this website do not reflect the opinions or views of DHS and DHS takes no responsibility for them.

MPLN is not a government agency, and information disucussed on this website will not be shared with DHS or other government agency unless required or authorized by law, such as in a maltreatment investigation.

For more information on DHS, please click visit their website.