Engaging Families in Schools

Engaging Families in Schools
Author: Nicola S. Morgan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317238621

Engaging Families in Schools is a practical resource that provides strategies and ideas that will contribute to the effective engagement of families and the involvement of parents in their child’s education. Parental engagement with school staff has a significant and very positive impact on children’s learning, and strategies presented have been extensively trialled in a variety of different settings. Nicola S. Morgan shows school staff how to understand the importance of family engagement and evidence the outcomes. This book has been split into ten easily accessible units: Understanding the importance of parent engagement Using whole-school strategies to engage parents The role of the family engagement officer Engaging all parents Engaging Dads Engaging multicultural parents Difficult to engage parents Working with parents to improve student attainment Working with parents to improve behaviour and attendance Working with parents of children with additional needs This is a must-read guide for teaching and non teaching staff who wishes to bridge the gap between their student’s school and family life and understand the effects of positive family engagement.

Engage Every Family

Engage Every Family
Author: Steven M. Constantino
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2015-11-17
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1506328857

Reach beyond theory and engage every family in student success Family engagement increases student achievement but how do schools connect with families who don’t participate yet? Educators can easily become frustrated trying to reach the disconnected and often fall back to engaging the already engaged. Is it possible to win over everyone? Discover how to move beyond theory to change your culture for better family engagement and student achievement. Through practical steps, reflections, and case studies, you will discover and address: How and where family engagement breaks down, and How to create a truly inviting culture for successful community and family partnerships

Engaging Children in Family Therapy

Engaging Children in Family Therapy
Author: Catherine Ford Sori
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1135413193

A common question at the initial meeting of a family therapist and a new client(s) is often whether or not to include a child or children in the counseling sessions. The inclusion of a child in the family therapy process often changes the dynamic between client and therapist -- and between the clients themselves -- within the context of the counseling sessions. And yet, although this is such a common experience, many counselors and family therapists are not adequately equipped to advise parents on whether to include a child in therapy sessions. Once the child does make an appearance in the counseling session, the therapist is faced with the challenges inherent in caring for a child, in addition to many concerns due to the unique circumstance of the structured therapy. Counseling a child in the context of a family therapy session is a specific skill that has not received the attention that it deserves. This book is intended as a guide for both novice and experienced counselors and family therapists, covering a wide range of topics and offering a large body of information on how to effectively counsel children and their families. It includes recent research on a number of topics including working with children in a family context, the exclusion of children from counseling, and counselor training methods and approaches, the effectiveness of filial play therapy, the effects of divorce on children, and ADHD. Theoretical discussion is given to different family therapy approaches including family play therapy and filial play therapy. Central to the text are interviews with leaders in the field, including Salvador Minuchin, Eliana Gil, Rise VanFleet and Lee Shilts. A chapter devoted to ethical and legal issues in working with children in family counseling provides a much-needed overview of this often overlooked topic. Chapters include discussion of specific skills relevant to child counseling in the family context, case vignettes and examples, practical tips for the counselor, and handouts for parents.

Engaging All Families

Engaging All Families
Author: Steven M. Constantino
Publisher: R&L Education
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2003-10-22
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1461663547

Families are a child's first and best teachers. A significant amount of research exists that strongly links the engagement of families in the educational lives of their children as a strong foundation to the successful achievement of all students. Educators cannot expect total engagement and high standards from students if both families and schools cannot form powerful alliances to guide those students to academic and lifelong success. Putting research into practice remains one of the most significant barriers to engaging families with schools. School leaders, already stretched thin, struggle to carve out the time and energy necessary to pour through research and create programs to promote family engagement within their school and community. As principal of a large, comprehensive, and diverse high school, Constantino solves this dilemma by providing a step-by-step process for practitioners to create family engagement programs at all levels. Engaging All Families provides a summary of research that acts as a foundation upon which the practitioner's tools are crafted. Readers are given the resources necessary to assess their present level of family engagement and the ideas, strategies, suggestions, programs, practices, policies, and procedures to implement a wide variety of customized family engagement programs. Numerous resources and references are also included. As a successful school administrator and nationally known expert in the field of family and community engagement, Steven Constantino builds the bridge from research to practice with Engaging All Families, and provides the information that allows all schools to become family friendly.

Promising Practices for Engaging Families in STEM Learning

Promising Practices for Engaging Families in STEM Learning
Author: Margaret Caspe
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1641132825

The technology revolution has made it critical for all children to understand science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) or risk being left behind. Promising Practices for Engaging Families in STEM Learning explores how families, schools, and communities can join together to promote student success in STEM by building organized and equitable pathways for family engagement across all of the settings in which students learn – including, schools, early childhood programs, homes, libraries and museums –from the earliest years through adolescence. This thought-provoking monograph includes three main sections with chapters from leading thinkers in the field: > The first section provides the theoretical and research base for the importance of family engagement in STEM and draws out the challenges and opportunities that exist– from the transmission of adults’ anxiety and lack of confidence in their own STEM skills, to inequalities in out-of-school learning opportunities, to biases and misconceptions about the kinds of STEM supports offered by families from low-income and immigrant homes. > The second section builds on this research by presenting success stories, best practices, and approaches to engaging families in STEM. > The final section focuses on how policies at the local, state, and federal level can support the promotion of family engagement in STEM. Taken together, the monograph shows that STEM is a powerful mechanism to connect, engage, and empower families. > STEM provides opportunities for parents and children to spend time together asking fun and meaningful questions that link in-and out-of-school learning. > STEM creates new experiences for families to co-construct and support learning with their children from the earliest years throughout formal schooling and onto college and career pathways. > STEM also presents possibilities for families to build confidence and agency in supporting children’s interests; especially those families who might be marginalized because of their economic or language status, race, or culture.

Engaging Theories in Family Communication

Engaging Theories in Family Communication
Author: Dawn O. Braithwaite
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2005-08-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1452222215

Engaging Theories in Family Communication: Multiple Perspectives covers uncharted territory in its field, as it is the first book on the market to deal exclusively with family communication theory. In this volume, editors Dawn O. Braithwaite and Leslie A. Baxter bring together a group of contributors that represent a veritable Who's Who in the family communication field. These scholars examine both classic and cutting-edge theories to guide family communication research in the coming years.

Powerful Partnerships

Powerful Partnerships
Author: Karen L. Mapp
Publisher: Scholastic Professional
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-07-06
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780545842402

Teachers and administrators will learn how to create the respectful, trusting relationships with families necessary to build the educational partnerships that best support children's learning. The book will cover the mindset and core beliefs required to bond with families, and will provide guidance on how to plan engagement opportunities and events throughout the school year that undergird effective partnerships between families and schools.

Handbook on Family and Community Engagement

Handbook on Family and Community Engagement
Author: Sam Redding
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2011-12-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1617356700

Thirty-six of the best thinkers on family and community engagement were assembled to produce this Handbook, and they come to the task with varied backgrounds and lines of endeavor. Each could write volumes on the topics they address in the Handbook, and quite a few have. The authors tell us what they know in plain language, succinctly presented in short chapters with practical suggestions for states, districts, and schools. The vignettes in the Handbook give us vivid pictures of the real life of parents, teachers, and kids. In all, their portrayal is one of optimism and celebration of the goodness that encompasses the diversity of families, schools, and communities across our nation.

Building STEM Skills Through Environmental Education

Building STEM Skills Through Environmental Education
Author: Stephen T Schroth
Publisher: Information Science Reference
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2020-08-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9781799856115

"This book addresses gaps in the understanding of green education and offers educators meaningful and comprehensive examples of environmental and sustainability education in the Pre-K through secondary grade levels"--

Funds of Knowledge

Funds of Knowledge
Author: Norma Gonzalez
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2006-04-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135614059

The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.