Inclusion Facilitators: Please take a look at the MAP Newsletter on Family Engagement
Inclusion Facilitators: Please take a look at the MAP Newsletter on Family Engagement
Read more about Family Engagement from the Winter 2023 MAP Newsletter focused on resources that may help you become more aware of what’s needed to work effectively with families, and the particular needs of families of children with disabilities.
US Department of Education: Family Engagement Learning Series Briefs
Welcome to the Family Engagement Learning Series briefs! These briefs summarize a six-part webinar series of conversations designed to Raise the Bar for family engagement practices between school and home. The 2023 series produced by the U.S. Department of Education in partnership with Carnegie Corporation of New York and Overdeck Family Foundation, provided an overview of evidence, highlighted bright spots in the field, and shared resources and evidence-based strategies to support student success with education leaders and practitioners. We believe parents, families, and caregivers are essential partners in supporting student success. Research finds that strong partnerships between home and school lead to increased academic success and engagement for students.
Of the briefs on six different topics early educations will be particularly interested in Family Engagement to Support Kindergarten Readiness and Early School Success (PDF)
Head Start: Birth to Five Father Engagement Guide
Explore this practical guide to learn how program staff build strong, meaningful, and authentic relationships with fathers in Head Start and Early Head Start programs. These relationships are the foundation of family partnerships that influence outcomes for children, families, and fathers. Find strategies early childhood leaders can apply right away. Review ideas for practice and reflection.
Dad’s Rock: Engagement Toolkit (PDF)
The Dad’s Rock Engagement Toolkit provides many ways to use The Dad’s Rock video to promote discussion and reflection on father engagement. It includes practical tips for schools, for teachers, for community groups, for men, and for women to consider in adopting a more father-friendly approach and a Father Friendliness Agency Self-assessment.
Use the toolkit and share the film to spark conversations with potential partners in your community.
Dad’s Rock: Nurturing Family Engagement Video
Dads Rock follows fathers on the journey to deepen their bonds with their children and the professionals working to improve father engagement. The research is clear that children do better when dads are involved, and yet all too often, agencies struggle to attract fathers to their services, and fathers face unconscious bias that keeps them at arms’ length. Highlighting the work of the Children’s Trust of Massachusetts Fatherhood Initiative, this film provides a fly-on-the-wall look at home visiting with dads, father support groups, and professional men’s family service providers’ groups to provide insights into working differently with dads and addressing existing biases.
Share the film and use the Engagement Toolkit to spark conversations with potential partners in your community.
Involving Families in Intervention and Assessment (PDF)
A young child’s healthy development depends on many factors, including early assessment and intervention for children who have delays or disabilities. When parents and other caregivers are involved as active partners, everyone benefits: families, programs, and children!
In this free downloadable toolkit, you’ll get strategies, tip sheets, and other tools for keeping families involved and engaged throughout the whole process of assessment and intervention. Discover the why and the how of family participation, get guidance on overcoming challenges, and find links to more helpful resources.
Using Your Story to Teach Toolkit (PDF)
The purpose of this guide from the Early Childhood Personnel Center (ECPTA) is to provide a roadmap for crafting a family story that will teach pre-service and in-service personnel in early childhood intervention what family centered, culturally responsive practices should look like. This guide can be used by family leaders to prepare families as trainers in state personnel development efforts. Using family stories to teach can be a powerful tool to prepare pre-service and in-service providers for successful partnerships with families that will improve child outcomes. Family stories can help providers understand how to partner with families in building capacity that will support child development and lifelong learning.
La Sopa de la Abuela: Special Education Telenovela
Series of Family Engagement Videos in Spanish!
This series was designed to support the engagement of families in the special education process, share information, encourage advocacy skills, and foster collaborative home-school partnerships which positively impact student success. Created by a design team that included family and staff members, we hope you’ll join us for the journey of one family as they navigate their emotions, learn about special education, and make decisions.
Family Engagement Core Competencies
The purpose of the Family Engagement Core Competencies is to create a nationally agreed-upon and unifying set of professional competencies for family-facing professionals to practice family engagement in education across the developmental spectrum, particularly one that is grounded in an equity and social justice orientation.
Parent Child Social Games (PDF)
When infants begin showing interest in their parents and other adults, the time is right to play social games. Social games are back-and-forth, your-turn-my-turn infant-adult play accompanied by short rhymes or songs that engage infants in playful interactions. Some of the results of playing social games with your child are active child participation, lots of playful bouts of back-and-forth communication, and bunches of smiles and laugher.