December 1998 Working With Families
By popular demand a set of NWREL training materials previously available only through NWREL workshops is now for sale on a stand-alone basis.
Working Respectfully with Families: A Practical Guide for Educators and Human Service Workers is a set of four training modules developed by NWREL's Child and Family Program. During the last year the program has used the modules—which promote an ecological, family-centered approach to education and service delivery—to train and certify experienced professionals as trainers. However, the training-of-trainers model was too slow to keep up with demand and was not affordable by some groups.
"There are an awful lot of trainers out there who could use these productively and there's a huge need," says NWREL Associate Rebecca Novick, who was involved in developing the materials. "People were calling from all over." While NWREL will continue to offer training for trainers, the modules are now available to the public, though recommended for people with training experience.
The mission of the training modules is to help education and human services providers form effective and supportive partnerships with each other and with the families they serve. "These modules have such an important message, and such a current message, too," says Rosalind Sandler-Sigman, a NWREL associate who has used the training modules with groups in Montana and Alaska.
"They get people to begin thinking about the resources in the community," says Ann Bartell, literacy resource and Title I supervisor for Great Falls Public Schools in Montana. Bartell was trained as a trainer and then assisted Sandler-Sigman in presenting two of the training modules to a group of teachers in Great Falls during a professional development day.
"Teachers were feeling they can't do it all," says Bartell. "I don't think they realized they could collaborate." She hopes to present the workshops not only to teachers but to the district's collaborative partners such as social service agencies, the county health department, Head Start, the county extension service, and others. Bartell would like to present each of the four workshops at least once every two years.
The message of the modules is also in tune with today's funding realities. Says Sandler-Sigman: "Funding is now collaborative—it's interagency. People are being told, 'If you want a grant, you need to collaborate.' Schools are being asked to collaborate with human service agencies and community partners. Because funding is being cut, that's the only way programs are going to survive. This training is a really good place for them to start."
The four-hour Module I: The Child, the Family, and the Community is a prerequisite for any or all of the other three three-hour modules. It covers the philosophical underpinnings of an ecological, strength-based approach to service delivery. Module II: Developing Partnerships with Families discusses the implications of the ecological model for building partnerships and helping relationships, contrasting the medical/ deficit model with the parent- professional partnership model. Module III: Creating Family-Friendly Schools discusses benefits of parental involvement, types of parental involvement, and basic tenets of effective parental involvement. Module IV: Home, School, and Community Partnerships focuses on how to strengthen families though home/school/community partnerships such as parent centers, family advocates, and home visiting.
The modules are designed to be very easy for trainers to use. "The Ecology of the Family: A Background Paper for a Family-Centered Approach to Education and Social Services Delivery" is required reading for both presenters and participants before the workshop. A training outline gives detailed directions to presenters for each portion of the training. Activities are timed, icons alert the trainer to the use of handouts and overheads, and shaded boxes summarize key points for each section. A "Tips for Trainers" section includes generic tips, tips specific to the workshops, and a list of resources for those who feel they need more background in topics such as school reform or collaboration. Handouts are color-coded, one color for each workshop. Overheads are encased in plastic sleeves so that they don't rub off.
"It's exciting to see how they've been adapted so they're easy to use," says Bartell who was involved in some of the early work of formulating the modules.
The activities in the workshops model collaborative processes and are developmentally appropriate. Participants begin by working in partnerships, then move on to trios, small groups, and large groups. That way, says Sandler-Sigman, even in big groups of people who don't know each other, everyone feels comfortable talking by the end of the workshop. An ideal-sized group for training would be 50, she says, though she has worked with larger groups.
Though the training materials focus on low-income families, the modules are applicable to anyone and to children at all grade levels. Sandler-Sigman also believes the materials are very appropriate for those involved with Title I services. NWREL has used the modules for training cadres composed of administrators, social service personnel, teachers, and others who work with families. The modules have been used in Head Start preservices, agency staff development events, tribal meetings, and other settings in Alaska, Montana, and Washington. NWREL staff have also presented the materials at major conferences, including Work Now and in the Future sponsored by NWREL and Empowering Families sponsored by the National Association for Family-Based Services.
Though a group or agency may not do all of the trainings initially, trainers are encouraged to order the whole set at a slightly lower cost in order to have all the information and have all modules available in case they decide to present additional modules at a later time.
The cost for the Working Respectfully with Families is $150 for the entire set of modules or $40 for each module sold separately. Associated participant materials are $7 per person per module. They can be ordered from NWREL's Document Reproduction Service by filling out the Document Order Form in this newsletter and returning it with appropriate payment to the Laboratory.
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