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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 chil- dren. 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 influ- ence 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
8 Family ParTnershiP Working
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, build- ing 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 neighbour- hoods, 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 develop- ing 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
10 Family ParTnershiP Working
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 fam- ily 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 educa- tional 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 posi- tive, 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 chil- dren’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.
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- Approach : two-way family participation and shared responsibility for educa- tional outcomes.
- Attitudes : together each achieves more by adopting a ‘can do’ attitude.
- Atmosphere : the educational setting is a family-friendly community, with part- nership built on a mutual respect.
- 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 rich source of infor- mation and expertise that will help to build a strong learning community.
The characteristics of effective family-educational
setting partnership working
The central characteristics of effective family–educational setting partnership working include:
- sharing power, responsibility and ownership, with each party having different roles;
- a degree of mutuality, which begins with the process of listening to each other and incorporates responsive dialogue and fairness (‘give and take’) on both sides;
- shared aims and goals based on a common understanding of the educational needs of children and young people;
- a commitment to joint action, in which families, children, young people, gov- ernors, teachers and other staff work together;
- trust, negotiation and flexibility, with an agreement of purpose and desired out- comes existing between both parties;
- collaborative, interdependent and balanced relationships that exist among both parties;
- differences in perspectives between families and the educational setting are appreciated and seen as learning opportunities;
- there is a commitment to the cultural competence, values and traditions of the different families existing in the community;
- power is shared with families leading.
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- Develop a clear vision for family participation, i.e. ‘ Every Family Matters in this school community ’.
- Have strong senior leader commitment, passion and support in driving forward and sustaining a family-friendly partnership working culture.
- Form a family–staff action team to plan, organise, implement and monitor fam- ily partnership working across the educational setting.
- Nominate Family Ambassadors, Family Champions, or a local community Family Commissioner to be a ‘voice’ for families.
- Ensure an increased visibility and approachability of staff in the educational setting.
- Have a culture of actively listening to family concerns and issues.
- Have staff give prompt attention to addressing and responding to the concerns of families.
- Have a connection with local family interests, i.e. get out into the community to find out exactly what it is that families want provided at the educational setting.
- Utilise a range of different consultation and communication methods.
- Stimulate and encourage family creativity and initiatives.
- Provide opportunities for families to learn new things and new skills.
- Make one-to-one work with families available.
- Organise family events and activities to fit around their working hours and fam- ily arrangements, offering crèche facilities and access to ICT on site.
- Network locally to disseminate good practice with other settings and services as well as to share ideas and undertake joint problem solving.
overcoming barriers to family involvement
and partnership working
Table 1.1 identifies common barriers to family involvement with schools and offers practical strategies for overcoming each one.
government expectations of the children’s
workforce in working with families
The core children’s and young people’s workforce for families comprises of:
- children’s and families’ social workers;
- foster carers and private foster carers;
- play workers;
- outreach and family support workers;
- Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) advisers;
- managers and staff in children and family centres and residential homes;
- portage workers.
Table 1.
o
vercoming barriers to family involvement
Barriers to family involvement
Strategies to overcome barriers
-^
lack of transportation and childcare
-^
Provide transportation and a crèche
-^
lack of parenting skills
-^
Provide parenting skills workshops and support
-^
lack of sufficient resources
-^
Provide information about services and make any necessary referrals
-^
language difficulties and new arrivals
-^
Provide translators and information in the family’s first language
-^
anti-social or long working hours
-^
o
rganise breakfast meetings, evening meetings, or meet at family workplace or other neutral venue in the community
-^
Feelings of alienation towards education, the school or teachers dueto their own previous negative experience of schooling
-^
Provide an intermediary such as a Family Champion, a Family ambassador or Family
l
iaison worker and meet off-site
Photocopiable: Family Partnership Working
©
r
ita Cheminais, 2011 (
sage
)
Table 1.
Children’s workforce national standards, knowledge and skills relating to working with families
Head Teachers’ standards
Children’s CentreLeaders’ standards
Professionalstandards forteachers
NationalOccupationalstandards for TAs
Workforce common core of skills and knowledge
Strengthening community •^
know about the strategiesthat encourage parentsand carers to support theirchildren’s learning.
-^
Be able to create, buildand maintain effectiverelationships andpartnerships with parentsand carers to support andimprove pupils’ achievementand personal development.
-^
seek opportunities toinvite parents and carers,community figures,businesses or otherorganisations into the schoolto enhance and enrich theschool and its value to thewider community.
Stronger families,stronger communities •^
raise expectationsand aspirations sothat families and thelocal community areencouraged to enjoynew opportunitiesfor learning andbetter health.
-^
ensure effective andsustained outreachinto the communityso that the mostdisadvantagedfamilies are identifiedand encouraged toengage with thechildren’s centre.
Communicatingand working withothers Q4. Communicateeffectively withchildren, youngpeople, colleagues,parents and carers.Q5.
r
ecognise
and respect thecontributionthat colleagues,parents and carerscan make to thedevelopmentand well-being ofchildren and youngpeople and toraising their levelsof attainment.
Liaise withparents, carersand families 60.
e
stablish andmaintainrelationshipswith parents,carers andfamilies.
Facilitateinformationsharingbetweenthe schooland parents,carers andfamilies.
Effective communication and engagement with children, youngpeople and families 1.
establish a rapport and build respectful, trusting, honest andsupportive relationships with children, young people, theirfamilies and carers, which make them feel valued as partners.
Understand that parents and carers are partners who have the leadrole and responsibility for children and young people.
involving
them in decisions affecting their child can have a positive effect onsupporting their children to achieve positive outcomes.
Child and Young Person development 2.
k
now and recognise the child or young person’s position in theirfamily or caring network, as well as in a wider social context. appreciate the diversity of these networks.
Understand and take into account the effects of differentparenting approaches, family structures and composition,backgrounds and routines.
Understand how children or young people may be affected byunderlying problems faced by them or their families or their peers.
Understand that families, parents and carers should be treatedas partners and respected for their lead role and responsibility inaddressing the specific needs of their child. Supporting Transitions 4.
k
now that in some family situations you may need to bemore proactive about involving services – for example, if youknow that parents or carers have not accepted help, but arecontinuing to experience problems with their child’s behaviour.
Photocopiable: Family Partnership Working
©
r
ita Cheminais, 2011 (
sage
)
ConTexT and ConCePT 17
- examining the future needs of families;
- recommending solutions for ways forward and next steps in order to improve the dynamics between the state and families.
Families perceived the state as either ignoring them or trying to take them over. Families undoubtedly remain the most important determinant of each child’s life chances and are crucial to their futures. Family matters to every child, and every family matters in the big society.
Family services in Britain have had a tendency to focus on families in acute cri- sis, leaving the remainder to struggle and cope alone. The state and its services have failed to understand the reality of modern family life, from changes in fam- ily structure and relationships to economic pressures and work–life balance, in addition to inadequately preparing future parents for parenthood. Families also considered that public services in Britain had remained over-bureaucratic and inflexible.
One in three families relied on grandparents to provide childcare and there were between 200,000 to 300,000 grandparents raising grandchildren. Increased longev- ity has resulted in more generations of the same family coexisting.
Key findings arising from the family inquiry report published in October 2010 indi- cated that:
- financial hardship was the biggest strain on family relationships;
- unconditional love was the favourite thing about family life;
- families would welcome more advice and information to help them when things went wrong within a family;
- the future of their children was a concern and worry for families;
- families would welcome more flexibility from employers to help them balance work and family life;
- families with older relatives considered that they did not get enough help from the government with eldercare;
- families considered that schools were family friendly in the way that they worked with them.
The Family Commission, however, wants schools to begin thinking about more ways in which they could engage with other members of a child’s extended family (i.e. dads, grandfathers, uncles and aunts) in activities to support that child’s learn- ing and well-being. Family-friendly schools must not mean just ‘mother-friendly’. In addition, schools must continue to work with other agencies in order to help them provide the best support to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and their families.
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Points to remember
- The family is the prime educator of the child.
- success in a child’s education depends on family involvement.
- Work with families rather than doing things to families.
- start from where families are and not from where you think they should be in relation to joint partnership working.
Questions for reflection
leaders of an educational setting or service, working with a diversity of families, need to seek the answers to these questions, in order to better inform the planning and provision of appropriate activities and events for families.
- is there a common shared and agreed understanding among the different stakeholders as to what family partnership working means in the context of the educational setting or service?
- To what extent is family partnership working occurring successfully?
- Who considers family partnership working to be currently effective?
- Who are the ‘hard to reach’ families in your community?
- What actions are you planning to take in order to engage these ‘hard to reach’ families?
downloadable materials
For downloadable materials for this chapter visit www.sagepub.co.uk/familypartnership
Table 1.1 overcoming barriers to family involvement
Table 1.2 Children’s workforce national standards, knowledge and skills relating to working with families
