Page 45 - BusinessWest October 28, 2024

Her experience on the committee led indirectly to her establishment, in 2018, of Parent Villages, a multi-faced nonprofit that works to improve educational achievement while also offering assistance for victims of violence, resources for family engagement and parent advocacy, and more.
The educational focus came from a presentation she heard as a School Committee member, about how 7% of kids aren’t prepared for kindergarten.
“I said, ‘70 or 7?’ And she was like, ‘7.’ So I said, ‘so 93% of our kids aren’t prepared for kindergarten.’ She said, ‘yeah,’ and I was floored,” Monroe Naylor recalled. “How can they be successful if they’re not ready for kindergarten? They’re starting off on a bad foot.”
So Parent Villages was born, first through meetings in at places like community centers and libraries.
“At one meeting, about 85 people came, all kinds of stakeholders, to try to understand what it is that we need to focus on,” she said. “And we found there were these disconnects; people just didn’t know about resources or how to access those resources.
“We also learned very quickly that the people who showed up to the meetings were parents like us, who were already in the 7% — our kids were already prepared. So how do we reach the other 93%? That’s when we built the organization and started to get into the schools, started working with Baystate Health and other programs to develop a strategy.”
Now, Parent Villages focuses on youth in grades 6 to 12 and their parents and caregivers — what Monroe Naylor called a two- generation model, which offers educational programming and workshops, but also provides interim support services.
“So if somebody is going through a domestic situation and needs housing, we help them. Over 90% of our folks are dealing with trauma, dealing with some type of violence, and just need help and support. They don’t know how to wrap their minds around where they need to go. We help them to see the end and see the potential they already have and help them grasp hold of the fact that they have a village, and that’s going to help them through it.”
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The topic of trauma is personal to Monroe Naylor due to an event during her teenage years that almost killed her.
“I was shot when I was 16, and that changed my whole life,”
she told BusinessWest. “I already had trauma dealing with the fact that I grew up in the neighborhood that I did — that was trauma enough. But when I was 16, I found a way to escape my day-to-day through music. I loved music, I used to rap, I used to do poetry; that was my safe space.”
So she’d spent time at local studios, working on her music. One day, while walking out of one, she was struck by a stray bullet from a fight on the street. Recovering from that physically wasn’t as challenging as the emotional aspects.
“It wasn’t just [the shooting] that that haunted me; it was the fear and the trauma after — the fear of going into certain spaces, or the fear of somebody coming after you. Those are the things you live with for the rest of your life.”
Through therapy, self-care, and a commitment to her faith, among other factors, she’s navigated that trauma, but always understood she had a solid support system, while many people dealing with trauma don’t, and need a village to be successful. Hence, the ‘village’ aspect of Parent Villages.
“The last couple of years, we’ve helped well over 700 people, and we consistently have about 40 youth that we work with throughout the year, and we have about 80 families that we’re working with, doing case management, throughout the year,” she said. “We have a great staff and a diverse board, and we focus on the important things that matter. We make sure we get what they need.”
An earlier nonprofit Monroe Naylor established in 2006,
called VITAL Center, advised several nonprofit startups, sole proprietorships, and small businesses. These days, she’s also
an adjunct professor at Springfield College and Worcester State University and volunteers as a mentor to youth and young adults in her church and community, establishing initiatives such as computer learning centers,
youth summer programs,
and other projects.
“
It was the
fear and
the trauma after — the fear of going into certain spaces, or
the fear of somebody coming after you. Those are the things you live with for the re”st of your life.
Monroe Naylor >> Continued on page W34
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