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
Students
 Higher grades, test scores, and graduation rates
 Better school attendance
 Increased motivation, better self-esteem
 Lower rates of suspension
 Decreased use of drugs and alcohol
 Fewer instances of violent behavior
 Greater enrollment in postsecondary education
Teachers
 Greater morale (and self-esteem)
 Teaching effectiveness (proficiency) increases
 Job satisfaction goes up
 Communication/relations with students, parents, families, and communities improves
 Community support of schools increases
Parents
 Communication/relations with children and teachers improves
 Self-esteem goes up
 Education level/skills increase
 Decision-making skills become stronger
 Attitude toward school and school personnel improves

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.
http://www.coso.jhu.edu/p2000/sixtypes.htm

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

Communication
 Newsletters
 Email
 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
 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 <a single-parent family>
 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/family[1]

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.