FAMILY INVOLVEMENT

Defining Family Involvement  What is your definition?

Can all of our families live up to our definition?  If not, how can we modify our definition to reflect our unique family contributions?  Key questions-  How would our families define family involvement?  What can we do to value diverse contributions?  How can we make every family believe they have something valuable to offer the school?  How can we let families know about the enormous variety of opportunities to contribute (various times of day, various skills required, things can be done at home, etc)?  What does it feel like to parents to come into our school?  Do we need to develop a different definition of family involvement?

Benefits of Family Involvement  Higher achievement  Improved school attendance  Improved student sense of well-being  Improved student behavior  Better parent and student perceptions of classroom and school climate  Better readiness to complete homework  Higher educational aspirations among students and parents  Better student grades  Increased educational productivity of the time that parents and students spend together  Greater parent satisfaction with teachers (Anfara, 2008)

Epstein’s Six Types of Family Involvement  Communicating  Communication between home and school is regular, two-way, and meaningful.  Parenting  Parenting skills are promoted and supported.  Student learning  Parents play an integral role in assisting student learning.  Volunteering  Parents are welcome in the school, and their support and assistance are sought.  Decision making  Parents are full partners in the decisions that affect children and families.  Collaborating with community  Community resources are used to strengthen schools, families, and student learning. (Epstein, Coates, Salinas, Sanders, & Simon,1997)

Continuum of Supports Following Epstein’s Six Types of Family Involvement Parenting Student Learning Volunteering Decision Making Community Collaboration Communication Activities

Communication  Newsletters   Phone calls  Meetings  Surveys  Things to communicate-  Data  Upcoming events  Ways to participate  Individual student progress (to individual parents)  Successes  Actions in response to Parent Survey results

Parenting Training opportunities  Universal  Ex. general behavior management, how to set up expectations at home  Secondary  Ex. using behavior intervention plans, rewards at home  Tertiary  Ex. community agency supports, exceptional children process

Parenting Cont.  Survey families about types of training  Include community agencies to provide support for parenting- consider meeting place  Parent resource library

Steps for Success For Training and Support for Families  Collect Data  Tell Parents why it is important  Plan Intervention  Get Feedback  Do Intervention  Share data results  Ex. Many students are struggling with letter identification. 65% could only identify 20 letters. We would expect 80% to have this skill at this time of year. We provided training and materials for families to work on this at home. Great Job Families- now we have 92% who can identify 20 letters!

Student Learning  Make and Take Trainings  Themed academic nights involving PBIS expectations “Respect Night”  Teach skills to use at home  Game show review night before tests  Provide parents with questions and answers

Volunteering  Ask parents about their talents, provide opportunities to share those skills Ex. music, art, organization, event planning, etc.  Tutoring  Mentoring  Teacher Assistance  Fund Raising  Guest Speakers  Variety in scheduling- day/evening, 1x mo, 1xyr

Decision Making  Representative on PBIS Team  Drafts sent to PTO team members for feedback  Involvement and support for meetings about his/her child

Community Collaboration  Letters about PBIS  Providing PBIS expectations to post where students are (YMCA, Churches, restaurants)  Request volunteers/support for activities and celebrations  Ask for sponsorship of events- advertising

Recognition  Awards  Certificates of Recognition  Announcements  Interviews/ Articles  Donated gifts from the community  Tickets to events

Steps for Success Training and Support with Staff  Define family involvement  Collect data  Consider data about the current families that are involved as well as the families that are not involved  Emphasize the importance  Match efforts to the culture and values of your families  Avoid saying that it won’t work. If you identify barriers, identify solutions.  Recognize the efforts of staff who work to build family involvement  Incorporate activities that are helpful to staff  Use the TIPS problem solving process to ensure that each of the 6 types of family involvement have been considered and addressed

Family is…  2 a: a group of persons of common ancestry : b: a people or group of peoples regarded as deriving from a common stock :3 a: a group of people united by certain convictions or a common affiliation : b: the staff of a high official (as the President)4: a group of things related by common characteristics: 5 a: the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children ; also : any of various social units differing from but regarded as equivalent to the traditional family (family, 2012)

Are we a part of a child’s family?  How much time?  Responsible for teaching?  Guiding, shaping, teaching values?  Social skills, life-long learners?  Investment Do we make children and their families feel that we are an extension of their family?

Problem Solving Practice  Review the parent survey data and practice the problem-solving process with your team.