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Introducing Family-Centered Practice

Because families are central to their children’s development, particularly during the early-childhood years, they are partners, active participants, and decision-makers in their children’s education process. As a result, family-centered practice is considered one of the indicators of quality in early-childhood education, programs, and services. At the heart of family-centered practice is the belief that families are the most important decision-makers in a child’s life (Sandall, Hemmeter, Smith, & McLean, 2005).

Family-centered practice also means that you, and all program staff, understand the important effect all family members have on each other and on the individual child. Each family member affects the other and the ways that the family functions. All family members are interconnected. From our families, we learn skills that enable us to engage in school and the workplace.

When considering family-centered practice, you view each child or youth as part of a larger system; you view family members as a whole family system. As a Training & Curriculum Specialist (T&CS), you help program staff become aware of and sensitive to the interactions and relationships taking place within the family, as well as outside interactions and supports that affect them. It is important that the entire program staff understand that to maintain relationships with families and to work effectively together, you learn, respect, and understand the characteristics of each family and its support system. You can also consider the characteristics and stressors that may affect a family’s involvement. What affects one family member can affect all family members. A family is a complex system in which no one member can be viewed in isolation.

Throughout the Virtual Laboratory School, we consider family-centered practice as an umbrella term that encompasses the beliefs and actions of people in your program. Consider this table:

As a T&CS, you should make an effort to get to know the families in your program. You should convey and model for program staff the importance of understanding each child and family, as this creates opportunities for you to better support the children or youth in your care. You can learn more about family-centered practices in the Family Engagement course.

Model

Welcoming Each Child and Family

Where do you feel welcomed? What happens in that place that makes you feel welcome? Do families feel welcome when they come to the program? How are families greeted when they call the program or ask a question?

T&CSs and Program Managers take a leadership role when it comes to welcoming families to the program. As a leadership team, T&CSs and Program Managers should discuss how they will unite to support the program’s mission to not only care for children but to also care deeply about the children’s families. T&CSs and Program Managers set the tone for the program. They welcome parents in ways that make them feel connected to the program. Just as they care about how the children are welcomed, they pay attention to how parents are included in the program not only at drop-off and pick-up times but throughout their child’s day.

In your role as a program leader, you must ask families how they want to be involved and remind family members that they are a vital part of the program. Families should be able to choose to be involved in many ways—for military families in particular, it is critical to have flexibility in how parents can participate. Equally important, you should have conversations with program staff, and observe their interactions with families, to ensure families are appropriately welcomed and have multiple ways to be involved in their child’s particular classroom.

Families want to have meaningful conversations about the program and their child. You must help ensure this happens at the program level and within each classroom or program space. In particular, you should take time to observe pick-up or drop-off interactions, and, in child care programs, review parent-teacher conference documentation, to help staff members reflect on how they communicate about the child, and how they can use these opportunities to learn more about families and form a collaborative relationship with each child’s family. When families volunteer, in the classroom or the larger program, they need to have clear directions, a purpose, and to know what the expectations are for them. Families who serve on a program advisory board need to know that their voice is just as important as that of others on the board.

In addition, a family handbook can assist T&CSs and Program Managers in talking with parents about the program's mission, philosophy, policies, procedures, roles, and responsibilities. For Program Managers, this can be a great informational item to share with families as you enroll them in your program and opens the door for you to share more about the program, and answer families’ questions. Asking parents for ideas to add or include in the family handbook is another way to demonstrate that families are important decision-makers and part of the program community.

Another central aspect of ensuring families feel welcome in your program is confirming that program staff update families about their child’s day and week. Ongoing communication, including two-way communication, where parents and the child’s caregiver exchange information about the child, is important. Working together on behalf of the child benefits all parties. Program staff must also be able to reach out to program leaders when they are unsure how to approach particular issues or topics with children’s families. As a program leader, you should be prepared to help program staff learn how to sensitively approach families. Sometimes you may be part of meetings between staff and families, or they may help staff members prepare for meetings and ensure they have the appropriate time and space to communicate with families.

T&CSs and Program Managers may have to explain to families why the program promotes developmentally appropriate practice, how the chosen curriculum supports youth development and stages of development. Sharing information with families that helps them be better informed as parents is a component of program leadership. You may do this in the form of print resources, family workshop nights, and in one-on-one, or team meetings with individual families.

Program Managers should have clear feedback mechanisms in place to understand how the program is meeting families’ needs. It is important to ask questions and provide families with different methods to give the leadership team feedback (questionnaires, suggestion boxes,  one-on-one conversations, family events).

T&CSs and Program Managers should also focus on families’ strengths. All families have strengths, and all families have challenges. Model for others a focus on each family’s strengths. T&CSs and Program Managers can engage staff in forming relationships with families and set the tone for a warm, welcoming program atmosphere. T&CSs and Program Managers serve as models and leaders who demonstrate the true spirit of caring for families.

Observe

Watch the video below to hear T&CSs and Programs Managers describe the importance of connecting with every family every day and the benefits of creating a partnership with parents.

Helping Families Access Services for Their Child

Meeting families’ needs, ensuring they feel welcome, and helping when there is a concern are all essential aspects of a T&CS and a Program Manager’s work. In many cases, the T&CS is the first person a staff member talks with when they have concerns about a child’s development. Having an ongoing progress-monitoring system for each child that indicates his or her growth and development provides excellent documentation to share with parents. Keeping observation records at various times of the day is also critical to documenting how children are progressing over time as they learn new information and skills. Families should also be encouraged to share information about what they observe at home. Families often are the first to notice if their children are experiencing difficulties.

T&CSs and Program Managers assist program staff and families with documentation and referrals to appropriate agencies when there are questions about a child’s development. They should have access to phone numbers, addresses, and other written information concerning vision and hearing screenings, health-care providers, early intervention services, school district special services teams, and mental health service agencies. These can be difficult conversations to have with families and so great care and sensitivity must be used when relaying any concerns with children’s families and sharing information about the child. When approaching a family with concerns about their child’s development, you should be prepared:

• To ask families about their child’s strengths, interests, and likes and to share your own positive impressions of the child’s experience.
• To ask families about their concerns and what they notice about their child’s experiences at home.
• With documentation from the child or youth’s experience in the program to help explain your concerns.
• With a list of resources to discuss together potential next steps.
• To listen to families. Hearing or talking about their child’s development may be a very emotional experience for some families, especially if there are other stressors in their lives.
• To emphasize that you are here to help support the family and their child and that your program staff wants to work as a team with the family to support their child in the best possible ways.

When programs enroll children who receive special services, the T&CSs and Program Managers should ensure that the children and teachers have adequate resources and supports. Staff need training and consultation to work with children with disabilities. The T&CS or Program Manager will need to work collaboratively to ensure that an infant’s individualized family service plan (IFSP) outcomes or a preschool child’s individualized education plan (IEP) goals are addressed. The child’s family, the school district or agency personnel, and the child care program leaders are a team working on behalf of the child with disabilities. Successful inclusion of children with disabilities requires careful planning, intentional teaching, and ongoing communication among all team members. You should follow your Service’s procedures for how to support children with disabilities and what is needed regarding IFSP or IEP documentation. You can also access the resources to work with program staff on developing strategies to support children with a variety of disabilities.

There are excellent resources available (see the reference list) that T&CSs and Program Managers may use for professional development for themselves and members of their staff. Training and appropriate resources for staff and families are essential to successful inclusion and should be explicitly written into any IFSP or IEP document for children with disabilities attending a child-care or after-school program. It is important to remember that families, or sometimes children’s special service providers (e.g., occupational therapists, speech therapists, physical therapists, early intervention specialists, etc.), can be a great resource for how to appropriately support a child with disabilities. You can arrange meetings where you and the appropriate program staff come together to learn specific techniques to use in the classroom to support the child. You can also help staff members foster conversations about disability and a sense of belonging for all children in the program. Work with staff to answer children’s questions honestly and factually, read books about disabilities, and help children learn to talk about differences respectfully.

Watch the video below to hear T&CSs and Program Managers describe their role in ensuring children with disabilities receive appropriate care and how to support staff members and families through the journey of caring for these exceptional children.

Collaboration with Community Partners

The Program Manager represents the program to local agencies, schools, and businesses. Program Managers may be involved in local groups such as a child care directors’ association, an interagency council focused on youth development and career training, a local community college work group, family advocacy groups and other associations or boards that promote child and family well-being. The Program Manager demonstrates a commitment to partnerships with other agencies and businesses in the community. As the face of the program, the manager acts with integrity and professionalism.

Some community partnerships may involve Program Managers committing to carrying out policies and procedures as outlined in memorandums of understanding (MOUs). MOUs are sometimes developed between organizations to organize and facilitate agreed-upon services for children and parents. For example, a child-care program may have an MOU with a birth-to-3 early intervention agency that indicates in writing that the agency will conduct developmental screening for infants and toddlers enrolled in the child-care center at no cost to the parents or child-care organization. An MOU for developmental screening may commit the Program Manager to obtain signed permission forms from families to have their infants screened, explaining the screening process, and including parents in the process. Arranging for space at the child-care center for the agency staff to conduct the screenings also may be part of the MOU. Such an agreement means parents learn more about their child’s development without the need for families to travel to another agency or take time off work. When Program Managers work together with community agencies and businesses, the time spent on collaboration can result in enhanced service to the children, families, and staff.

Other community collaboration activities that T&CSs and Program Managers can engage in include:

• Shared professional development opportunities (workshops, webinars, conferences) for themselves and their staff
• Opportunities to apply for grants, scholarships, materials for staff (e.g., some civic groups and service organizations offer grants for schools and agencies for particular ideas, such as adding more science-related materials)
• Opportunities to benefit from volunteers from the community who can share their skills and expertise with the staff and children

Building collaborative relationships takes time and attention, but it often has meaningful outcomes in terms of enhancing the overall quality of the child and youth program. Groups that focus on professional support for T&CSs (e.g., a coach’s group) or Program Managers (e.g., a child care director’s group) can provide those in leadership positions with a network to share their celebrations and challenges and to create new friends and colleagues among those working on behalf of children and families.