It’s amazing what can happen in eight weeks. Just ask Dr. Laura Gonzalez,

assistant professor in the Department of Counseling & Educational Development. Or you can ask any one of the hundreds of immigrant Latino parents who participate in a college awareness and support program that Gonzalez created with the help of Dr. Jose Villalba.

In collaboration with Forsyth County churches, social service agencies and high schools, Gonzalez and her team work closely with Latino families on challenges ranging from college awareness to affordability — or simply, Gonzalez says, “the assumption that they are not meant to pursue the college dream.”

Funded by the Kathryn Reynolds Charitable Trust and the Winston-Salem Foundation, the Padres Promoviendo Preparacion program includes eight-week sessions that cover a variety of topics. Why college matters. How to initiate conversations with your children to understand their interests and how to guide them. How to help your children make the most of their high school experiences. The types of colleges and universities in North Carolina. The steps to admissions. Securing financial aid.

“The change we see is significant,” Gonzalez says. “One gentleman told me, ‘My view of the world used to be so small; now you’ve really opened it up so that I see it is possible for my children to go to college and that there are resources to help me find the path.’”

That image will stay with Gonzalez for a long time. “That’s one of the things I have loved — watching a family go from a place of relatively little hope to one of great hope about their kids’ futures.”

Out of this comes a powerful support community among the parents as well. “When the program ends, they know that even though they won’t see us week to week, they can support each other now. Once the flame gets lit and the excitement blooms in one family, they pass it along to other families, friends and neighbors.” One participant felt so encouraged that she offered to lead a program.

And it’s not just the children that make their way to college. Often the parents themselves decide to pursue a degree.

“I feel that part of what I am doing is bridging awareness so that the Latino community is more aware of their resources, but also so that the educational community is more aware of how much immigrant families have sacrificed to give their kids these opportunities — and how passionately they want for their kids to get ahead.”

Now, Gonzalez mostly serves as an administrator while alumna Cristina Noyola facilitates. “Most of these families don’t know where to go to seek help or even that there is help,” Noyola says. “Opening that door for them and seeing their expressions as this realization sinks in, is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.”

All you have to do is show them the way, Gonzalez has found.  “I tell them, ‘I’m just trying to give you a map because you are in a new space and you just don’t know where to start.’ I would be the same way if I were in a foreign country. We always just try to normalize it for them. They just need to the tools to keep making progress.”

For spring 2016, the plan for moving the program itself forward is to train community partners so that they can facilitate groups themselves by the time the three-year grant has ended. Other point persons — church pastors, for example — will replace Gonzalez and Noyola as leaders so that this important and effective outreach program will continue to thrive.

For more information, contact Dr. Laura Gonzalez at lmgonza2@uncg.edu.

Written by Andrea Spencer