Sandra Carmichael was working at Diageo, a wine and spirits company, in 2004 when she met Dee Crawford-Tyner, one of the Parent Leadership Training Institute’s first graduates in Bridgeport.

The two struck up a conversation about getting involved in the community, something that had been in Sandra’s heart since moving from Stamford to Bridgeport in 1989.

Helping people had always come naturally to her. She grew up dreaming of working in corporate America, especially in human resources, where she could guide and support others. “I’ve always had a passion for helping people level up and gain resources to better themselves,” she said.

It was Crawford-Tyner who first told her about the Parent Leadership Training Institute, or PLTI. “She just started listening to me,” Carmichael said. “She said, ‘I think I have a platform for you and your family.’ That one conversation changed everything.”

Carmichael enrolled in PLTI alongside her husband and youngest son. While going through the program, the site coordinator at the time, Donna Thompson-Bennett, pulled her aside. She was struck by Carmichael’s energy, insight, and drive to make a difference — and encouraged her to become a facilitator after graduation.

She did. Now, more than two decades later, Sandra serves as PLTI’s Bridgeport site coordinator, helping other parents discover the same power and purpose she found. “I really started having an eye opener,” she said. “I realized I could do something big and different with my life. This program helped me find my purpose.”

She remembers her first few sessions vividly. The energy in the room, the strong leaders surrounding her, and the moment she began to see herself differently.

“I just remember the parent leaders that were in the room. Anything I get involved in, I’m always thinking about how I can connect with people,” she said. “I’m a great connector and networker — always promoting and believing in people, encouraging them to do what they want to do. And I didn’t even realize people were watching me too — seeing something I didn’t even see yet.”

For more than 25 years, the Parent Leadership Training Institute has quietly transformed the lives of Bridgeport families, staff and participants say. Through its companion program, the Children’s Leadership Training Institute, it has built a movement rooted in self-advocacy and generational change.

Carmichael has since become a certified facilitator, site coordinator, and mentor to hundreds. “This work lets me be boots on the ground,” she said. “People trust me. I get to hold their hands through real-life struggles and help them find the resources to move forward.”

Staff say this is not just a leadership class. It’s a lifeline — a 22-week course in public speaking, civics and community organizing. And it is free to those who need it most. Each year, parents commit to learning how to turn their personal challenges into public leadership and they all complete projects. Alongside them, their children learn the same values in the CLTI, tailored to their own experiences.

It’s work that goes beyond the classroom. Carmichael has helped parents access laptops, Wi-Fi, transportation, and child care. “We make it possible, not just convenient,” she said. “Because life is hard. But we believe parents deserve to dream and lead, even through the hardest seasons.”

Gina LeVon Simpson has been part of PLTI since it came to Bridgeport in 1998. She helped lead its launch and eventually became the national consultant for CLTI. Her passion is with watching the kids grow into leaders beside their parents. “The curriculum is parallel,” Simpson said. “Whatever the parents learn, the children learn at their level. Through stories, art, music, even basketball.”

Simpson remembers a 5-year-old girl who started a coat drive after learning to define a community problem. And a quiet boy on the autism spectrum who asked his school to host an autism awareness event — the first time many had ever heard him speak. “Parents are in tears when they see what their kids can do,” Simpson said. “This is what transformation looks like.”

The issues these families face are not new. “We’re still advocating for the same things we did 27 years ago,” said Simpson. “Books in schools, safe neighborhoods, resources that other towns take for granted. But now, we have generations of leaders. Parents and children who know how to fight for what’s right.”

Carmen A. Nieves is one of those leaders. When she moved to Bridgeport from Stamford, friends and people in her circle said she wouldn’t make it. But PLTI changed her path. “I didn’t know anyone. My job was gone. My house was gone. But I found this program, and it changed my life,” she said.

Nieves’ class project was the East Side Resource Exchange, which eventually became the Community Network Center, located in the Department of Labor office, a hub of support still operating today. Nieves described the East Side Resource Exchange as an “in person 211.” For example, if a parent was moving, someone was buying a car, or looking for affordable housing options or benefits, they would help them with resources in their new neighborhood.

“I created my own job,” she said. “We got computers from the IRS, training from Info Line. We made 2,500 referrals in the first year alone.”

Now a facilitator herself, Nieves teaches the second half of the curriculum, which focuses on policy, systems and power. “Phase I is emotional,” she said. “Phase II is action. I push parents to take their ideas to the mayor’s office, to the media, to the people who make decisions.”

She knows not every parent will complete their project. But the goal is deeper than that. “It’s about building confidence,” Nieves said. “It’s about believing you have the right to be heard and the tools to make that happen.”

Tamara Titre was a part of this year’s graduating class and knows the value of those tools. As an attorney, she came to PLTI with professional training, but she left with something more. “It was about community,” she said. “It was about filling each other’s buckets. I got just as much as I gave.”

Her children went through CLTI alongside her. Her 13-year-old goddaughter, once introverted, found a voice. “The leadership I saw in her and my son was incredible,” Titre said. “They’re not the same kids they were when we started.”

For Titre, PLTI’s power lies in the relationships. “You build connections with other parents. You learn to listen and to be listened to,” she said. “And you carry that with you.”

At the heart of PLTI is the belief that everyone has the potential to lead and that leadership starts with love, according to Carmichael. Bridgeport parents have turned that love into action. They’ve launched coat drives. Pushed for school reform. Built resource centers and community gardens. They’ve stood in front of city councils and school boards and said, “Here’s what we need. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

And they’ve brought their children with them.

“This program meets you where you’re at,” said Carmichael. “It stretches you. It helps you believe in yourself. And then it shows you how to make your dreams real. For yourself, your kids, and your community.”