Reframing Family Engagement

6 Shifts: Where Is Your School or Organization?

It can be challenging for leaders and practitioners to engage and partner with families. It might appear that too many families are too busy or overwhelmed, uninterested, or simply unavailable and unable to be resources for their kids. In reality, we’ve identified dozens of challenges — practical barriers, attitudes and expectations, and institutional barriers — that make family engagement difficult.

We’ve identified six shifts of emphasis that can help recognize these barriers and energize how your organization works with families.

1. A shift from focusing all resources on one developmental period and one setting (child care) towards engaging families across multiple transitions and settings.
2. A shift from focusing on families’ deficits, risks, or dysfunction to building on families' strengths and resilience.
3. A shift from recruiting families to participate in programs to deepening mutual, trusting relationships with families.
4. A shift from building parenting skills to nurturing relationships within families.
5. A shift from helping individual families on their own to cultivating relationships among families.
6. A shift from serving families to empowering families.