Minnesota Parent Leadership Network

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, and our parent leaders from across the state. Beyond the structure of this grassroots organization, it is the passion, dedication and commitment to the work before us in developing a strong voice for children in our mental health system of care.

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.