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Family Engagement: What Is It?

What are your feelings about working with families as a whole? What do you enjoy about it? What seems difficult or challenging? While you may feel motivated to develop relationships with families and to support family engagement, it is common to feel more success and effectiveness in focusing on your teaching practices and your direct interactions with preschoolers. It may not seem simple or intuitive to combine these practices.

Family engagement has different meanings for different people. In many cases, it relates to an ongoing partnership and collaboration between you and the families you serve. Early care and learning programs are committed to engaging and involving families in meaningful ways, and families are committed to actively supporting their child’s learning and development. The literature around family engagement highlights the following characteristics:

• Strong, trusting relationships between teachers, families, and their community
• Recognition, respect, and support for families’ needs, as well as differences
• Strength-based partnership where decisions and responsibility are shared
• Activities, interactions, and support increase family involvement in their child’s development
• Families and caregivers take a shared responsibility for their child’s learning
• Acknowledgment that family engagement is meaningful and beneficial to both families and the early care and learning program

It is important to realize that family engagement can look different and take on many forms. What family engagement means and looks like depends on the unique characteristics and the individual comfort levels and understanding of each family.

To help make sure that families are committed to their child’s learning and are engaged in the preschool program, families should be invited to participate at whatever level they feel most comfortable. Participation can vary based on the family's comfort and ability. It may mean they participate in monthly meetings or take part in a parent advisory committee. They may donate cookies for a bake sale. Or they may even spend their time volunteering as a chaperone on a field trip with the class. It is important for families to feel supported and recognized for the ways in which they are able and choose to participate and engage—from bringing their preschooler to the program each day to sharing their concerns or serving on committees. See the handouts attached in this section for additional ideas and considerations to support family engagement.

The Importance of Family Engagement

Family engagement in early learning can benefit children, parents, families, teachers, and program quality in various ways. Can you remember what caring adults in your family, community or early care program did to help you grow, learn and develop?

Family members are their children’s first teachers and they have a powerful effect on their young children’s development. Family engagement during the first years of life can support a preschool child’s readiness for school and ongoing academic and lifelong success. Research shows that when children have involved parents, the results are very positive, especially over the long term (Henderson & Mapp, 2002).

When families are involved in the preschool program, they may also feel more vested in what happens there and more confident in their role as parents. Through these interactions and relationships, families may learn additional strategies from you to promote and continue development and learning at home. Such strategies include expanding children’s language, readings stories aloud, asking open-ended questions, encouraging children’s efforts, identifying and expressing feelings and emotions, or responding calmly to challenging behaviors.

Including Families in Preschool

There are many reasons to include parents and families in the preschool program. Family usually has the largest impact on the development of young children. Family involvement is linked with positive outcomes for children, including better outcomes in child development, attitudes, and behavior. Furthermore, family involvement in school can help improve school programs, the school environment, and teachers (Hanson & Lynch, 2004; Turnbull, Turnbull, Erwin, & Soodak, 2006).

Children develop within their family unit, which is different for each child. Since a child’s entire family can influence their development, it is important to think about ways to acknowledge and include diverse family types in your program. Throughout this series of lessons, we use the term family to refer to important people in children’s lives. These people can be parents, siblings, guardians, extended family members such as aunts or cousins, and other individuals who are involved in children’s lives.

Helping Families Feel Welcome: Entering Preschool

Families and preschool teachers have a common interest in each child’s development. It is crucial to establish and maintain collaborative relationships between home and school that will promote children’s learning and growth. For many families preschool is the first encounter with group care, so the beginning of the year may seem scary and stressful. As preschool teachers, you can do the following to support families during this sensitive, transitional time:

• Invite families to visit your classroom before their child’s start date.
• Ask families about their child’s interests, favorite toys, nap routines, toileting routines, likes and dislikes.
• For children whose first language in not English, ask families to provide a list of words or phrases in the child’s native language.
• Ask the family to video or audio record a message to their child that you can share with their child during difficult times in the transition period.
• Encourage families to bring a comfort item for their child from home, such as a favorite stuffed animal or blanket.
• Ask families to share their hopes, goals, and priorities for their child.
• Give families information about the different ways they can participate in your classroom.
• When it comes to families of children with special learning needs who are transitioning to preschool from home-based early intervention services, provide information about the transition process, including a timeline of events. Be sure to collaborate with other specialists that work with the child.  
• Make sure you ask families about their preferred method of communication in case you need to reach them about their child.
• Display photographs of children and their families in the classroom where children can easily see them.
• Include books about families in your classroom library.
• Invite families to participate in the assessment process.
• Ask families of children with special learning needs to share input and preferences about their child’s placement and education.
• Encourage families to volunteer or participate in activities throughout the year, and provide a calendar of events.

Encouraging Families to Be Involved

Within your program, there should be a specific plan as to how to engage families throughout the year. Though families’ participation is voluntary, it is your job to make them feel welcome by actively encouraging involvement. Program activities should reflect families’ interests and motivate them to participate. Additionally, your program may have a family involvement committee. This committee is composed of family members who encourage communication and involvement with the goal of strengthening and supporting the well-being of children and families. This committee is a resource and asset to your program as families may discuss issues or concerns and suggest changes to improve family satisfaction and involvement. Collaborate with a trainer, coach, or supervisor to promote family involvement.

Although you may provide several opportunities for family involvement, some families may still not participate, and you may sometimes feel discouraged by their lack of involvement. It is important to continue to invite all families. Lack of participation does not mean they do not care. There may be reasons why their participation is difficult, including inflexible work schedules or unique family demands and characteristics. As a caring and resourceful professional, be flexible and think of alternative ways to engage with all families in your classroom.

There are a number of ways to encourage and support family participation in your regular preschool routine, such as:

• Inviting family members to share special talents (e.g., play an instrument, lead a cooking activity, sing, make a craft).
• Giving family members jobs in the preschool routine (classroom helper, guest reader, party planner, activity-preparation helper).
• Inviting family members to visit your classroom at any time.
• Asking family members to contribute materials for activities (empty food containers for use in center activities, used clothing items for use in dramatic play area).
• Inviting family members to join a classroom field trip.
• Inviting family members to be guest speakers about certain topics (e.g., a firefighter talking to children about the job).
• Inviting family members to share aspects of their culture.
• Asking family members to help put together a class photo album.
• Asking family members to help organize a family dinner night.
• Asking family members to share input about classroom field trips.
• Asking family members for extra helping hands with cleaning and rearranging your classroom.
• Encouraging families to share suggestions or concerns with you.

See

Do

A great way to encourage family involvement in your classroom is by establishing personal connections with families of children in your care. Think about families as partners; sharing information about yourself and your work in preschool will help families to get to know you better and ultimately feel more comfortable being a part of the preschool experience.

Here are some ideas to help you continue to engage families, to increase their involvement in the program, and to build a strong and collaborative relationship:

• Communicate with families and take time to observe their body language to help you measure their comfort level in the care setting. Find ways to ask them how they are feeling about the program, such as a family survey, and discuss any concerns they might have.
• Smile and greet families by name.
• Arrange the environment in a way that encourages families to spend time there. Keep the entrance area open and uncluttered with simple but attractive signs welcoming them. If possible, have a space for families' coats or belongings. Consider setting up a large board on a wall near the center of the room for parents to leave daily messages. Include some comfortable spots, such as pillows on the rug or a small sofa, so parents can read a picture book to their child or a small group of children.
• Spend time observing families as they interact with their children to learn strategies for supporting them while in your care.
• Show families where important supplies and other items are stored so they have access to things they might need for their children when in the care setting.
• Include special materials or customs from a family’s culture.
• Establish regular times to meet with families face-to-face and help families design a plan or create activities to reach the dreams and goals they have for their children.
• Share observations and other strength-based information about their children.
• Ask families questions about their children.
• Share something personal about yourself (e.g., “My mom tells me I struggled falling asleep for nap, just like Carlos. She said I never wanted to stop playing!” ).
• Offer multiple ways to communicate daily with families (e.g., send a note home, share a photo of children playing, communication sheet with information about routines, phone call, newsletter).
• Create rituals around hellos and goodbyes.
• Invite families to share what they see and hear their children doing at home or in the community.

In this video, listen to family members share their experiences participating in their child’s program.