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July 16, 2019
This quote is often attributed to former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She was known for her commitment to human and civil rights, and she often advocated for the youth of this country. Parents and out-of-school time professionals share the beautiful dream of giving young people a thriving future. Working toward that goal together can improve the chances for success.
Since the 1960s, research has shown that students can reap significant benefits from family involvement in their education. This is especially true for disadvantaged students. Among 21st CCLC families, only 50 percent of parents have completed high school, and 90 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs. What does this mean for your family engagement efforts? First, it means it’s important and worth doing! Second, it means you may need to challenge any assumptions that low levels of family engagement mean disinterest or “lack of commitment” on their part. You’ll need to consider and address such issues as the transportation and scheduling difficulties families at lower socioeconomic levels may face as they work to put food on the table.
Your program staff can build their knowledge with Understanding and Overcoming Challenges to Family Engagement, a tool in the updated Y4Y Family Engagement course. A helpful tool for making a creative plan is Y4Y’s Supporting and Engaging Families. If your family engagement efforts fall short of your expectations, take heart. Emerging wisdom surrounding success cites the importance of learning from failure, whether your own or someone else’s. In fact, “automatic success” doesn’t necessarily give you layers of information you can use to advance your expertise. It sounds like a cliché, but failures truly are learning opportunities. You and your staff can adopt this positive approach by conducting the Family Engagement Training to Go with a critical eye toward learning opportunities.
As Mrs. Roosevelt’s contemporary, Humphrey Bogart, might say, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
For additional information on the benefits of family engagement, and ways you and your staff can forge family partnerships, visit the updated Y4Y course on Family Engagement.