Family Partnership Working

A Guide for Education Practitioners

Rita Cheminais

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781446208007, 9781446207994
• eBook ISBN: 9781446292600
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

Improving the quality and effectiveness of relationships with families is a key concern for all those working in education. Here, Rita Cheminais provides an evaluation framework that will enable practitioners to review current practice, and further enhance and develop their partnership working with families.

Six key themes of family partnership working are explored:

- ethos, vision and policy

- leadership, management and co-ordination

- communication and information sharing

- partnership in practice

- early intervention

- effectiveness.

Guidance on auditing your own work and action planning is included, and the book provides a range of practical resources which are available to download from the SAGE website. This a vital handbook for those working with the Birth to 19 age range in Children?s Centres, primary and secondary schools, special schools, academies, Pupil Referral Units and Further Education colleges.

1

The context and concept of family partnership working

This chapter covers:

• The context of the family in the twenty-first century.
• The concept of family involvement.
• The aims and goals of family partnership working.
• The characteristics of effective family educational partnership working.
• Key features that facilitate family involvement and partnership working.
• Overcoming barriers to family involvement and partnership working.
• Government expectations of the children’s workforce in working with families.

The context of the family in the twenty-first century

Educational settings and families share responsibilities for the socialisation of children. Children grow and develop within three important contexts:

• The family.
• The educational setting.
• The community.

Families are the first prime educators of their children and they continue to influence their children’s learning and development throughout their school career and beyond. Families, as producers, consumers and disseminators of knowledge in the twenty-first century, are the most powerful factor affecting the lives and outcomes of children and young people.

On average, children spend 87 per cent of their time in a school year at home with their parents and other family members. Strengthening and further enhancing the connections within families, between families and with their communities and the organisations that affect them has a greater positive effect on achievement, particularly when it is linked to children and young people’s learning. When an educational setting builds positive partnerships with families that clearly respond to family members’ concerns, and which acknowledge family contributions to the work of the setting and supporting their child’s learning – including sharing joint power in decision making – then more successful sustainable family connections tend to prevail.

Three core elements are essential to strengthening families. These are:

• Economic support: employment, a living wage to meet basic family needs, building family assets to sustain a growing family through to retirement.
• Family support systems: for healthy family development, i.e. health services, child care, education.
• Nurturing thriving communities: access to affordable housing, safe neighbourhoods, leisure facilities and public amenities that promote social networking within and between families.

The concept of family involvement

Effective educational settings have high levels of family, parental and community involvement because family involvement is central to the core business of the setting.

Family involvement refers to members of the child’s family being actively, critically, resourcefully and responsibly involved in contributing to promoting and developing the well-being of their communities.

Family involvement with an educational setting is influenced by their relationships with teachers, children and other relevant aspects of the local context.

Family involvement with an educational setting is also driven by three factors:

• Psychological motivation: i.e. parents and families believe that they should be involved and that they really can make a difference to help children learn.
• Invitations to become involved: from the educational setting, their child or the child’s teacher.
• Family confidence: the family/parents have the knowledge, skills, time and energy to become involved in supporting the child’s learning and well-being, as well as supporting the work of the educational setting.

Joyce Epstein (1997) proposed a framework of involvement that is comprised of six main types of activities that help to connect families, schools and communities. These cover:

• Parenting: helping families develop parenting and child-rearing skills to ensure the health and safety of children, and to create a home environment that encourages and supports every child’s good behaviour and learning. This type of involvement also entails assisting educational settings in understanding their families, i.e. by providing activities that can help families to understand and promote their children’s development.
• Communicating: developing an effective accessible and appropriate two-way communication between families and the educational setting/service relating to the work of the setting and children’s progress and achievements.
• Volunteering: finding creative ways to involve families in the work and life of the educational setting while also ensuring safe recruitment, training and support for volunteers. Ensuring that the talents and interests of family volunteers match the needs of the pupils or students and the educational setting.
• Learning at home: informing and linking families with their children’s curriculum through family learning activities that can be undertaken at home, in addition to supporting homework by offering practical guidance.
• Decision making: including families in the educational setting’s decision-making process, in addition to encouraging them to be advocates, PTA or Family Forum members, on the governing body or other committees.
• Collaborating with the community: providing extended services and wrap-around-care for children and families, either operating from the educational setting or available at another local venue.

Success in each child’s education is dependent on the involvement of their family. Children and young people are far more likely to view their education in a positive light, and be more receptive to learning, when their family is enthusiastic about and values education.

The concept of family partnership working

Partnerships as a concept are a collaborative relationship that is designed primarily to produce positive educational and social effects on the child while being mutually beneficial to all the other parties involved.

Partnership, in relation to joint working with families, refers to the state of being an ‘authentic’ partner, a ‘sharer’, an associate engaged in a worthwhile undertaking with the educational setting where their child is being educated. There is no one-size-fits-all model of family partnership working, as the context of each educational setting will vary. However, the more often that teachers and educational settings reach out to parents and families, the more often that families from all socio-economic groups will make more of an effort to engage in the events and activities going on in that setting. The greater the constant drip-feed via newsletters, the educational setting’s website, text messaging families, blogs, notices on the family/parent noticeboard in the main entrance of the setting, and of course word of mouth from Family Ambassadors and local Family Champions, the more likely it is that family engagement and participation will increase.

Partnerships with families need to be adapted to fit specific family conditions; demographic family patterns in the locality; children and young people’s needs; the educational setting’s context; and community resources.

The aims and goals of family partnership working

The following aims and goals clarify the purpose in fostering and promoting family partnership working. These can inform the development of an agreed policy for family partnership working.

• Each partner is viewed as making equally valuable contributions while also respecting others’ various contributions.
• Meaningful roles and activities for family members are created by the educational setting to help them support their child’s learning at home.
• A wide range of approaches is identified to enable families and members of the community to be involved in activities at the educational setting.
• The educational setting provides in-house experiences for families that are positive, welcoming and responsive to family needs.
• Families are given appropriate opportunities to contribute to decision making and governance in the educational setting.
• The educational setting acts as a community learning centre that offers good quality educational, social and recreational activities to families.
• The needs and preferences of the families’ children attending the educational setting are respected.
• The competencies of all key participants (e.g. governors, staff, the wider children’s workforce) are developed to enable them to work and communicate with a diversity of families.
• The educational setting promotes greater continuity and congruence in joint partnership working with families in order to ensure smoother transitions at significant times in each child’s educational career.
• The educational setting or service follows the four As of partnership working.

The four As of working in partnership with families

These were put forward by Sheridan and Kratochwill (2007) and were seen as being important pre-requisites that could lead to better and more successful educational outcomes for children/young people.

1. Approach: two-way family participation and shared responsibility for educational outcomes.
2. Attitudes: together each achieves more by adopting a ‘can do’ attitude.
3. Atmosphere: the educational setting is a family-friendly community, with partnership built on a mutual respect.
4. Actions: all the strategies and practices that enable building a successful family–educational setting partnership (1 to 3 above) are in place.

The four As can also help families to understand the education system better. The families of children attending an educational setting provide a ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Title1
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• About the author
• Downloadable materials
• Key for icons
• List of figures and tables
• Introduction
• 1 The context and concept of family partnership working
• 2 How to achieve effective family partnership working
• 3 Auditing family partnership working and action planning
• 4 Building a family partnership working portfolio of evidence
• 5 Monitoring, evaluating and assessing family partnership working
• 6 Communicating with families
• Appendices: model resources
• Acronyms and abbreviations
• Glossary
• Useful websites and organisations
• Bibliography
• Index