Just as the child's environment offers challenges and opportunities, community settings offer challenges and opportunities for healthy family functioning. The 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 that 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 and participation. Two-way communication and advocacy strengthen both the community support network and family functioning.

The key components include:

• Creating partnerships and helping relationships
• Building the community environment
• Linking families and community support

Family-centered programs are planned to strengthen families so they can nurture children. Recognizing strengths in the families, building on family strengths, and working in partnership with families to support children, are critical activities in reforming the way agencies and schools respond to needs of children. Schools and community programs that understand and embrace these principles are experiencing overwhelming success in reaching families.

The concepts "family support" and "family-centered" mean respectful work with families. Schools and agency staff know and understand what is meant by "client- or consumer-driven services," "family friendly, non-deficit approaches" and "individually and culturally appropriate activities." This means offering activities and services at hours that working or single parent families are free to utilize. It means attitudes toward families need to be explored and discussed.

Some suggested activities:

• Establish a Community Resource Directory listing services and eligibility. This helps to inform staff of all resources in the community and tie programs together.
• Develop interagency training sessions. Workers from different agencies are given opportunities to learn crucial skills of working with families, together, sharing ideas and supporting each other.
• Foster professional development by pairing new staff with experienced staff.Modeling professional behavior is an effective way to train new staff. At the same time new staff may bring new ideas to the field. This may grow into a support network for new staff as they develop relationships with families.
• Ensure sufficient technical assistance and support. Provide adequate staff training and preparation. Use third party entities for technical assistance (evaluation, instrument development, and networking.)
• At the pre-service level, colleges and universities must ensure that students are exposed to training on child development and interdisciplinary collaboration. Colleges and universities can develop joint practicum seminars across relevant disciplines, provide experience, guidance and role models of collaboration through fieldwork in communities, and modify pre-service and in-service courses to reflect the message of collaboration.

Developing a Partnership Model: Self-Assessment Form (pdf format)
For partnership groups developing parent-professional relationships.

Training Programs
Two training programs addressing the way schools and agency staff can recognize these strengths, are: Working Respectfully with Families, and Family, School, Community Involvement.

For Further Reading…
The Ecology of the Family: A Background Paper for a Family-Centered Approach to Education and Social Service Delivery

How Family-Friendly is your school?
Use this guide to start a discussion on ways you can improve supports to families and children. Guidelines for Family-Friendly Schools: Self-Assessment Form (pdf format)
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