The mission of the Child and Family Program is to help ensure educators, human service providers, and family members have the knowledge, skills, and resources to meet the increasingly complex needs of children and families at all developmental stages of life.

Early Development
The early childhood years are a time of rapid social, emotional, linguistic, cognitive, and physical development, corresponding with dramatic neurological changes. The attitudes and patterns of learning developed in these early years lay the foundation for the child's success in school and beyond.

Home and School Learning Environments
The Child and Family Program believes that a supportive and stimulating learning environment is the right of every child. Children form a positive image of themselves when in psychologically safe environments that offer stimulating activities and opportunities to form relationships that are personally meaningful.

Yet it is known that many children enter school with unmet needs and suffering from the effects of poverty. As a result, schools are increasingly expected to be key players in nurturing resilience, providing a safe haven, and reducing violence and criminal behavior for at-risk youth.

NWREL's Child and Family Program works closely with educators, policymakers, human service providers, child-care professionals, and families to help children enter school ready to learn and to aid schools and human service providers in their efforts to meet the diverse needs of all children. Programs are assisted in developing holistic approaches to address these needs, emphasizing child and family strengths, and developing partnerships with families based on mutual responsibility.

The Child and Family Program focuses on seven major long-term goals:

1. Improve the transition from preschool to elementary school for young children and their families.
2. Enhance the ability of schools and communities to create sustainable change based on the knowledge of how children learn and grow.
3. Share resources and expertise to encourage broad community collaboration with local schools to influence student learning.
4. Improve and enhance the quality, affordability, and accessibility of early care and education for young children and their families in the Northwest.
5. Enhance the continuity of services for children and families in the Northwest.
6. Share promising practices in early care and education.
7. Share resources and enhance knowledge, skills, and opportunities for all family members to become more effectively involved in the education and care of their children at all levels of their learning.

Family-School-Community Partnerships
Just as the child's environment offers challenges and opportunities, community settings offer challenges and opportunities for healthy family functioning.

Information and resources are provided to families, schools, and community members building partnerships for families and children. Network development and training in a family-centered approach is offered to family, school, and community collaborations.

A family-centered approach is a process for delivering services to families in which families are recognized as having unique concerns, strengths, and values. This approach offers strategies to build and promote the strengths families already have and to understand and improve the match between the needs of children and their families with community resources and support.

Parents are involved as peers and collaborators, rather than clients. The relationship is based on mutual responsibility.

The key components include:

• Creating partnerships and helping relationships

• Building the community environment

• Linking families and community support

Participation, two-way communication, and advocacy strengthen both the community support network and family functioning.

The Child and Family Program works to improve access to supportive and stimulating learning environments and to promote high-quality education both at home and in school for all children.
The program provides information on relevant issues in early care and education and family support programs, describes benefits of research-based practices, and fosters public and professional dialogue.

Program Activities

• Improves educational practices--combining research with knowledge from effective practitioners

• Conducting evaluations and longitudinal studies of a variety of early care, human service, and educational programs

• Supporting best practices through training and technical assistance, product development, and information dissemination

• Sharing resources and strategies among practitioners

Major Areas of Program Concentration

Creating appropriate learning environments for children and families

• School-linked comprehensive services for children and families
  -identify effective practices in home-school-community collaboration

• Culturally and developmentally appropriate practices
  -promote quality early childhood education programs that are sensitive to the child's individual development and unique environments

Improving integrated services

• Continuity of care
  -strengthens the ties between schools and public and private agencies serving children and families

• Professional development
  -improves professional development of early childhood educators, parent advocates, agency managers, teachers, school administrators, and other school personnel

For more information, please contact:

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory
Child and Family Program
101 S.W. Main Street, Suite 500
Portland, Oregon 97204-3297
(503) 275-9487 tel
(503) 275-0654 fax
http://www.nwrel.org/cfc
child-family@nwrel.org