I had planned to spend 2003 launching Marketing Magic-related products/services to social service providers nationwide, and implementing the ideas with Parents Toolshop. But the day after the Marketing Magic workshop at the NCFR conference, three college professors inquired about using The Parent’s Toolshop to train college students to be parent educators. This was a whole new "target market" — but an appropriate one with great potential. So I spent 2003 working on two big projects:

• A college textbook that integrates research-based parenting theory and the practical parenting tools that apply these theories/practices in daily life. I worked throughout 2003 with a professor who was doing the theory/research piece, which has stalled temporarily. Until the integrated textbook is available, I plan to develop/publish a college-specific edition of The Parents Toolshop and package some of the supplemental materials we offer our instructors for college professors. (One of my 2004 goals.)
• The S&P committee and I spent most of 2003 developing/writing/implementing a special certification process to grant Parents Toolshop instructor certification to college students, professors and trainer-of-trainers. (See what we developed at http://www.parentstoolshop.com/HTML/DownloadGFSP.htm )

PTC also received approval in 2003 to provide Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for the following programs. ( NCFR has given CFLE CEU approval to the following programs indefinitely. The Ohio Social Worker and Counselor Board has given CEU time-limited approval.)

2003 was also a transitional year for me personally, because my regular part-time job ended and I needed to re-establish myself as a local private parent educator. The silver lining was that this freed me up to do more national public speaking. Some of the training programs I offered were:

I also received a year-long contract with the county protective service agency to do parenting classes for their clients, which were open to the public. I also became a trainer for the Western Ohio Regional Training Center (WORTC) as a trainer for protective service caseworkers and foster parents.

2003 was also humbling, as I had some dismal exhibiting experiences that showed me what parents and parent educators’ needs are and where there are gaps in PTC resources I need to fill. I realized I need to develop and write a second-grade-reading-level edition of The Parents Toolshop and have it translated into Spanish (which are two of my 2004 goals).

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