6.2: From Parent Involvement to Family Engagement

Last updated
Save as PDF

Page ID: 139742

\( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \) \( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)\(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)\(\newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

Family Engagement as Parent Involvement

Parent involvement refers to parent participation in the systems and activities the early childhood education program in ways that support them as the primary educators, nurturers, and advocates for all children enrolled in the program. Parent involvement refers to opportunities for parent participation in a variety of program activities that support child and adult development, including policy and program decision-making.

Family engagement refers to ongoing, goal-directed relationships between staff and families that are mutual, culturally responsive, and that support what is best for children and families both individually and collectively. Staff and families share responsibility for the learning and development of children, the progress toward outcomes for children and families, and for parent involvement in the program. Parent involvement is a part of this larger construct of family engagement.

Table 6.2: Examples that Illustrate the Shift from Parent Involvement to Engagement^{^[1]}
Parent Involvement	Family Engagement
Parent Involvement is primarily the responsibility of family services staff (or parent involvement specialists, home visitors, or transition specialists).	Family engagement is embedded in the work of all staff members, management systems and leadership priorities.
Parent involvement might revolve around outputs—for example, the number of parents who show up at a meeting.	Family engagement focuses on evidence of positive, goal directed relationships, for example, that result in family progress in one (or more) of the seven outcome areas.
Parent involvement works with a small percentage of families involved in leadership opportunities (policy council, parent meetings, special events, etc.).	Through ongoing relationships, family members are engaged in a variety of goal directed ways related to Parent and Family Engagement Outcomes.
Programs that involve parents collect data from children and families—for example, information about parent participation.	Programs that engage families use child and family data to improve services. These programs help families understand and use child data to support their children’s progress and development.

Engaging and Collaborating with Families

Programs

Develop and implement program policies that give families and staff members opportunities to observe and discuss children’s development and behavior.
Support families by providing tools and resources that help them contribute to their children’s learning.
Invite families to participate formally and informally in the development, governance, and evaluation of program services and policies, as appropriate.

Teachers

Recognize that working with families promotes children’s development.
Build relationships with families to ensure meaningful two-way collaboration, supporting the children’s learning and development and helping families to understand child development.
Attentively greet family members when they arrive and depart from the program setting, and use those opportunities to exchange information about the family’s child.
Contribute ideas and resources to promote each child’s learning and development in the home and community.
Collaborate formally and informally with families and colleagues to share observations, describe children’s accomplishments, plan for children individually and as a group, and address concerns about children.
Support families as decision makers for and educators of their children.
Actively solicit and listen to families’ goals, aspirations, and concerns about their children’s development.

A toddler showing two caregivers a toy. — Figure 6.2: Children thrive when their families are engaged and included in their early childhood education program.[2]

Home Language

Programs

Create strategies to engage family members from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and invite family members to share goals and strategies for supporting children’s home languages in the group or classroom. This may require the use of interpreters and translators.

Teachers

Learn a few words in each child’s home language, such as greetings, names of family members, words of comfort, and important objects or places. Parents and other family members can be good resources for learning their language.
Seek and use resources to facilitate communication with family members in their home language, ensuring that all families are included. ^{^[3]}

“Acknowledge, Ask, and Adapt” By putting into practice the following steps for culturally responsive caregiving, you will gain the information you need to support appropriately the growth of all the children in your care.

Step 1: Acknowledge The first step is a step of recognition in which you use your growing awareness of the existence of different cultural assumptions about child development. A willingness to be open with yourself is essential to the success of this step.

Step 2: Ask The second step is an information-gathering step. The goal is to get the information you need about the parents’ and your cultural beliefs and values so that you can solve the problem together during the third step. Do not rush the second step.

Step 3: Adapt In this last problem-solving step, you use the information gathered in step two to resolve conflicts caused by cultural differences and find the most effective way to support each child’s growth.”

References

[1] Examples that Illustrate the Shift from Parent Involvement to Engagement

[2] Image from the California Department of Education is used with permission

[3] Infant/Toddler Learning and Development Program Guidelines by the California Department of Education is used with permission (pg. 59-60)