Northwest Education Collaboration: Beyond Family Involvement

Child and Family Support Programs: Fostering Resiliency and Emotional Intelligence

Creating supportive partnerships with families and understanding school as a context for children's development reflects a number of tenets (see handout 11 (pdf format)), including:
The child must be viewed from an ecological perspective - that is, in the context of the family, community, and larger society
Rather than diagnosing and remediating "the problem," professionals form partnerships with families - sharing knowledge, building trust, and developing goals and action plans based on family strengths, perspectives, and values
Both families and children need supportive environments for healthy development. Effective programs help families build informal support networks, as well as linking families with health and social service agencies.

While support programs serve all children and their families, their efforts concentrate on children who may be experiencing difficulty in the school or home setting. They focus on social and emotional development - helping children to develop a positive sense of self, and to recognize and appropriately express emotions. But rather than encouraging an inward focus - an "I am special because . . ." approach, characterized by early childhood educator Lillian Katz as fostering a "collection of self-absorbed individuals" - the goal is to help all children become competent, responsible members of the learning community.
Is the emphasis on nurturing and caring merely a warm, fuzzy approach to education that conflicts with or replaces a more rigorous curriculum? In Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why America's Children Feel Good About Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add, Charles J. Sykes (1995) argues that schools are enhancing children's self-esteem but ignoring the basics. However, many researchers have concluded that emotional intelligence is the bedrock upon which to build other intelligences, and that it is more closely linked to lifelong success than is IQ (Goleman, cited in O'Neil, 1996).
Emotions are not usually something that gets in the way of thinking; they are a crucial source of information for learning - they drive attention, create meaning, and have their own memory pathways (Jensen, 1998; Greenspan, 1997). In Teaching with the Brain in Mind, author Eric Jensen explains why engaging children's emotional response is important for robust learning:
Emotions engage meaning and predict future learning because they involve our goals, beliefs, biases, and expectancies. . . the systems [for thinking and feeling] are so interconnected that chemicals of emotion are released virtually simultaneously with cognition (p. 93).

The stronger the emotion connected with an experience, the stronger the memory of the experience. Intense emotions trigger the release of the chemicals adreniline, norepinephrien, and vasopressin. They signal the brain, "This is important - keep this"(Jensen, 1998). But emotions can also inhibit the thinking process. Under conditions of high stress, the brain goes into "survival mode;" higher-order thinking is impeded. Although in many schools, there are few opportunities to talk about feelings and concerns, children's ability to learn is often jeopardized by the neglect of their emotional wellbeing.
Armstrong (1987) points out that while feelings can get in the way of learning, at the same time they hold the key to academic success. "Ignored or hidden from sight, they can sabotage youngsters' efforts to succeed. Acknowledged as real and given the opportunity for appropriate expression, they can pave they way for effective learning to occur" (p. 97). School-based child and family support programs provide opportunities for children and families to discuss feelings and concerns in a supportive environment, an environment that focuses on problem solving, rather than assigning guilt or deciding who is wrong (see Handout 12 (pdf format)).
Because the goal is for children to learn to think for themselves and to care about others, behavior is not seen as something to be "managed." Instead, children are helped to think through their emotions, to reflect on their actions, and to imagine how others think and feel. Author and educator Alphie Kohn points out: "To help students become ethical people, as opposed to people who merely do what they are told, we cannot merely tell them what to do. We have to help them figure out--for themselves and with each other--how one ought to act" (1996, p. 4). Programs may include a number of components and characteristics:
Family advocates, child and family mentors, and child-development assistants (who may be funded with Title 1 monies) can play an important role in bridging home and school and in breaking down barriers that inhibit home/school partnerships. They often provide parenting education and help families access needed health and social services. Though typically not certified counselors, advocates work closely with counselors and/or social workers, serving as a special friend and mentor to children identified as needing extra support. They also provide individual consultation and assistance to teachers regarding the students and families they work with, as well as coaching teachers in the use of strategies to promote children's social and academic skills.

Both training and ongoing support are crucial. When there are a number of family advocates in a district, it is helpful to form a support network that meets on a regular basis. The effectiveness of family advocates is greatly enhanced when they are fully integrated into their school communities.

Home visiting programs - sometimes with parents visiting other parents who become links between parents and schools - have been effective in including families in the school community. Careful attention to cultural issues and the comfort level of families is crucial to their success. Major elements include:

Paid parent support workers, selected on the basis of previous experience in counseling or training in community settings
Systematic training, supervision, and support
Services which provide information about school programs
Services demonstrating positive ways to work with children
Services which offer referrals to health and social service agencies
Meetings between teachers and home visitors to exchange information and ideas (Heleen, 1992).

Family resource centers (see sidebar) provide an inviting place where parents can chat with other parents and teachers, watch informational videos, and learn about school activities. In addition, they often provide resources and information about health and social service agencies, adult educational opportunities, child development, school policies and procedures, and how to support their child's education. Most important, family resource centers are a highly effective way to communicate to parents that they are welcome at school.

Family literacy programs have been successful in creating home/school partnerships and in providing enjoyable intergenerational educational experiences. Based on the premise that the family literacy environment is the best predictor of a child's academic success, the goal of family literacy programs is to provide opportunities for children and parents to learn together.

Programs may include book giveaways, lending libraries for parents, workshops on story book reading, early childhood programs, adult basic and parenting education, and coordination with other service providers. Parents are encouraged to see themselves as important teachers, even if they have limited reading skills. For example, parents are encouraged to engage in a variety of enjoyable activities with their children, providing questions and comments that promote language development, and to view storytelling as an important literacy activity that lays the foundation for learning to read. Linguistically diverse parents are encouraged to tell stories, to read to children in their primary language, and to share knowledge of their culture, helping the child to connect their life outside the school with literacy activities.

After-School Programs can provide an inviting, safe environment for children to engage in academic, cultural, artistic, and recreational activities. Although over 28 million children have parents who work outside the home, many of these children do not have access to affordable, quality care during the hours before and after school. There are an estimated five to seven million "latchkey children" who go home alone after school (Source: www.ed.gov/pubs/SafeandSmart/)

Quality after-school programs can provide much needed supervision of children during out-of-school hours, and can positively impact social interactions and academic achievement, particularly when they are links between school-day teachers and after-school personnel. Wellesley College's National Institute of Out-of-School Time has identified four desired outcomes for after-school programs and the children who participate in them:

Relationships with caring, competent, and consistent adults
Access to enriching learning activities
Access to safe and healthy environments
Partnerships with families, schools, and communities

Researchers have consistently found that small schools--a maximum of 800 students in high schools, 400 in elementary schools--are superior to large school on most measures of effectiveness. Students in small schools have more positive attitudes toward school, higher levels of extracurricular participation, better attendance, more positive social relations, lower dropout rates, and a greater sense of belonging. Student social behavior--as measured by truancy, discipline problems, theft, substance abuse, and gang participation--is more positive in small schools. Academic achievement is at least equal--and often superior--to that of large schools (Cotton, 1998).

Just as assessment results are used to guide instruction, program evaluation guides planning and implementation. Although evaluation is often not the top priority for busy practitioners, evaluation can be a powerful tool for clarifying expectations, for improving services, and for procuring funding. According to Elaine Meeks, Principal at Cherry Valley Elementary School in Polson, Montana, the key to their continued success in obtaining grant monies is thorough and ongoing evaluation. She reports that they "evaluate everything. Teachers, parents, and children are included in the evaluation process of determining what works, what doesn't, and how to improve it."

Effective programs base their interventions, desired outcomes, and program evaluation on a strong theoretical and conceptual base. Careful attention to the process that produced the outcomes can shed light on the extent of impact and how the change occurred (Schorr, 1997). While increasing educational achievement is a primary goal of schools and the child and family support programs within them, educators know that many factors affect student achievement. Because these factors interact with each other, it is not always possible, nor even desirable, to determine if one particular element or event caused a particular result. For example, we know that meaningful family involvement, culturally responsive teaching, authentic pedagogy, and positive discipline that focuses on problem solving and communication skills are positively correlated with student achievement. They interact with and reinforce each other, creating a caring environment that supports healthy development.

Each element of a program can and should be evaluated, however. Information can be collected on family involvement, parent, student, and staff satisfaction with school climate and activities; student attendance; children's social and emotional development and behavior; teachers' and students' attitudes toward school, and, of course, student achievement. Methods of collection may include quantitative measures, such as numbers of parents at school events, student attendance, structured interviews, and surveys with rating scales.

Qualitative measures - which are designed to provide a framework within which respondents can express their own understandings in their own terms - can include open-ended interviews and focus groups with children, school staff, and families. Of course, questionnaires can include closed-ended questions (that can be answered with a yes or no) and also provide space for comments, such as the survey used at Mary Harrison Elementary School in Toledo, Oregon (see sidebar). Collecting stories from all participants can provide powerful illustrations of a program's work.

A number of resources are available to help programs assess their effectiveness. A program self-assessment toolkit from The Family Resource Coalition of America provides specific benchmarks to help family support programs assess all aspects of their day-to-day operations, identify program strengths, clarify areas for improvement, and develop a plan for improvement (Family Resource Coalition of America, 1999). The Inno Net Toolbox Web site, offers tools and instruction for crating detailed evaluation plans, as well as program and fundraising plans. Also available is a database that provides downloadable generic surveys, interview guidelines, and tips for collecting data (www.innonet.org). The United Way internet site is a guide to resources available for measuring program outcomes for health, human services, and youth and family service agencies (www.unitedway.org/outcomes).

Obtaining ongoing funding for support programs can be a daunting task, even for seasoned grant-proposal writers. In a recent regional needs-assessment undertaken by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, stable funding for such programs was identified as a need by a number of educators. While Federal Title XI and Title I monies may be used to fund some portions of support programs, including a family advocate position, not all schools qualify for these funds. In addition, other programs that compete for these funds may take precedence.

With increased recognition that schools are responsible for creating and maintaining a "warm school climate where children can learn in peace" (Sherman, 1999), more monies are available becoming for schools to craft their own solutions to increasing disruptive behavior and emotional problems that interfere with learning. Successful programs typically utilize a variety of funding sources, including state, federal, (see handout 15 (pdf format)) and private foundations.

What does a child and family support program look like in the real world? The following snapshot provides an example of a state-funded program in Camas, Washington. In addition, a number of successful programs in the Northwest are described elsewhere in this web site.
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