The following is the text of a keynote speech given by Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin at the recent tenth anniversary celebration of PARENTS (Parent Awareness Resources for Educating, Nurturing, Training Skills). Dr. Pion-Berlin is President and CEO of Parents Anonymous Inc.

As we think about the New Millennium, I would like to reflect briefly on the past, examine the present, and call us to action about the future with regard to our work in the field of child abuse and neglect. As we think of the past, present, and future, I raise these questions for each of us -- staff, parent leaders, and volunteers -- to ask ourselves: Can we do better? How do we begin? Are we willing to challenge ourselves with new ideas, strategies and partnerships? Can we shape the direction of the future by how we partner with families and communities to address strengthening families? When we consider the psychological, economic and social costs of maltreatment and the impact on future generations, we need to make a solid commitment to ensure real and positive outcomes for families struggling to seek help before or after problems have arisen by effectively partnering with them in their local communities. We as staff cannot achieve these vital goals alone. Without parents as significant partners, we are bound to create limited and unresponsive services which are not directed to any real outcomes. We at Parents Anonymous, believe our success hinges on our ability as an organisation to create and maintain strong working relationships with parent leaders. This results in effective shared leadership with staff, volunteers and boards - from the Parents Anonymous group, through all functions of our local, state and national organisations. Parent leaders offer valuable "expertise'' and staff need to be challenged to include their voice to ensure achievable goals through shared leadership. We need to commit to having meaningful parent leadership roles on our policy councils, strategic planning committees, inter-agency groups and local, state and national advisory boards.

In order for parents to hold meaningful roles in planning, designing and assessing programmes in partnership with staff, staff and parents have to be willing to commit to establishing roles, determining outcomes to measure success, and training on collaboration and other skills. Furthermore, policy-makers should also collaborate with parents who have directly experienced family problems and can speak from experience about needs, concerns, and services.

As the nation's oldest child abuse prevention and treatment programme, Parents Anonymous is celebrating a generation -- or 30 years -- of work in diverse neighbourhoods all across America. Since a generation reflects the average time it takes for children to take the place of their parents, it is time for our field to move forward with all the knowledge, skills and abilities learned, tested, and developed to partner with families in need who want to turn their lives around forever. As we say in Parents Anonymous, I believe that the future holds much help, support, strength and hope for families today and the field as a whole.

With regard to help -- we must commit to the national replication of effective community-based programmes rather than waste valuable resources on limited, unproven strategies and proven programmes in this field and we should fearlessly challenge ourselves to go to scale with these programmes. With regard to support -- we need to create welcoming and mutually supportive environments for parents to give and get help. Otherwise the blame and shame they already feel will deter them from seeking help early or whenever they are willing to begin the struggle to change their attitudes, behaviours and lives in significant ways. We need to trust the life experiences of others as "expertise'' and support the creation of community and non-judgmental acceptance offered by parents to one another. We as staff should also be looking at ways to link with one another to support programmes across a continuum of strategies which offer help to diverse families. With regard to strength -- we need to closely examine our values, methods and models to ensure that we are building on the strengths of families and not just giving lip services to the idea. We as professionals need to commit to a working and ongoing partnership with parents. We need to be open to learning, dedicated to creating meaningful leadership roles for parents, and accepting that change will occur when parent leaders engage in critical dialogue and take action within a shared leadership atmosphere regarding strategic planning, programme implementation and evaluation, training, and policy-making.

With regard to hope -- the future must be our venue and vehicle of hope for parents, their children, and staff in the field. Parents Anonymous parents always tell us that their own process of healing can be tracked by their changing feelings of hopelessness to hopefulness. I believe that we as a field can make a positive difference with the next generation if we jointly define goals which translate into measurable results when staff, volunteers, parents, government, and business collaborate.

Much can be achieved when we commit to find common ground between organisations at the local, state and national levels; challenge ourselves to grow and change just as we encourage growth and change in the families we work with; take action to ensure shared leadership roles and responsibilities with parents; and pledge to take risks and go outside of the "box'' with regard to collaboration and service delivery. By working together in the New Millennium, we all can find help, support, strength and hope to maintain or renew our dedication, and the tenacity and courage to strengthen families in partnership with their communities all across the world.