Oregon Parent Training and Information Center Mission

Our goal is to educate and support

parents, families and professionals in

building partnerships that meet the

needs of children and youth with the full

range of disabilities ages birth to

twenty-six.

“Coming together is a beginning, Keeping together is progress, Working together is success.”

Henry Ford

Parent Participation

Oregon Parent Training and Information Center

What we have in common

• Big expectations, little recognition or monetary reward

• We work long hard hours• We care about our children

Parent Involvement

Includes several different forms of participation in education and with the schools. Parents can

• Attend school functions • Respond to school obligations (parent-

teacher conferences, for example). • Volunteer at school• Help their children improve their schoolwork

Research Shows• Parent involvement in children's learning is positively related

to achievement. • The more intensively parents are involved in their children's

learning, the more beneficial are the achievement effects. • The most effective forms of parent involvement are those

which engage parents in working directly with their children on learning activities in the home.

• The more active forms of parent involvement produce greater achievement benefits than the more passive ones.

• Considerably greater achievement benefits are noted when parent involvement is active--when parents work with their children at home, certainly, but also when they attend and actively support school activities and when they help out in classrooms or on field trips, and so on.

• The earlier in a child's education that parent involvement begins, the more powerful the effects will be.

• Research has established that the most successful parent participation efforts are those which offer parents a variety of roles in the context of a well-organized and long-lasting program. Parents will need to be able to choose from a range of activities which accommodate different schedules, preferences, and capabilities. As part of the planning process, teachers and administrators will need to assess their own readiness for involving parents and determine how they wish to engage and utilize them.

Barriers to Collaboration

• Lack of Time• High Caseloads• Prior negative

experiences• Belief that families

cause disorders• High expectations• Inadequate Knowledge

• Isolated Families• Power imbalance• Lack of support for

staff• Lack of Trust• Miscommunication

More BarriersMore Barriers

• Times of meetings

• Teachers hard to contact/ busy

• Language• Unsure how to

support students

• Lack of Support staff• Little return for effort• Dwindling support

over time• As students get older

parents less involved• Competing demands

• Investigators have identified lack of planning and lack of mutual understanding as the two greatest barriers to effective parent involvement. School staff wishing to institute effective programs will need to be both openminded and well-organized in their approach to engaging parent participation.

Five guiding principles for involving parents in schools• A no-fault approach, focusing not on who is to

blame but on what can be done. • Coordination and cooperation among all

adults concerned with the child's best educational interests.

• Decision by consensus whenever possible. • Regular meetings representing the entire

school community. • Active involvement of parents.

• Comer and Haynes (1992)

Other guidelines include:

• Communicate to parents that their involvement and support makes a great deal of difference in their children's school performance, and that they need not be highly educated or have large amounts of free time for their involvement to be beneficial. Make this point repeatedly.

• Encourage parent involvement from the time children first enter school (or preschool, if they attend).

• Teach parents that activities such as modeling reading behavior and reading to their children increase children's interest in learning.

• Develop parent involvement programs that include a focus on parent involvement in instruction--conducting learning activities with children in the home, assisting with homework, and monitoring and encouraging the learning activities of older students.

• Provide orientation and training for parents, but remember that intensive, long-lasting training is neither necessary nor feasible.

• Make a special effort to engage the involvement of parents of disadvantaged students, who stand to benefit the most from parent participation in their learning, but whose parents are often initially reluctant to become involved.

• Continue to emphasize that parents are partners of the school and that their involvement is needed and valued.

ACTION OPTIONS: Educators:

• Seek out opportunities for professional development and training in parent involvement. • Make parents feel welcome in the school. • Provide a parent center for parents to use while at school. • Reach out to parents whose first language is not English. • Learn about the various ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds of the students

and know how to communicate with diverse families. • Accommodate parents' work schedules when creating parent-involvement opportunities. • Assign homework projects that engage each child's parents and family and make learning

more meaningful for the student, such as a family history, interviews with grandparents, or descriptions of parents' daily work.

• Keep parents informed of their children's performance and school activities by means of notes, telephone calls, newsletters, conferences, and meetings.

• Provide clear, practical information on home-teaching techniques for parents of children who need extra help at home.

• Provide opportunities for parents to visit the school, observe classes, and provide feedback.

• Start the school year with an opening conference. • Develop a plan to promote teacher-parent partnerships at school. • Invite parents to serve on school or district committees.

Professional development and training in parent involvement.• Ballen and Moles (1994) describe basic components that could be

included in such training: • "Schools and school systems seldom offer staff any formal training in

collaborating with parents or in understanding the varieties of modern family life. However, both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are working to make such information and skills widely available....There are myriad ways for families to become more involved in schools, and training can help teachers and other school staff change the traditional images of contacting parents only when a student is in trouble or when the school needs help with a bake sale. Teacher training programs can include general information on the benefits of and barriers to parental involvement, information on awareness of different family backgrounds and lifestyles, techniques for improving two-way communication between home and school, information on ways to involve parents in helping their children learn in school and outside, and ways that schools can help meet families' social, educational, and social service needs."

• As the student populations of American schools continue to become increasingly diverse, teachers and administrators may benefit from learning about their students' various ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Such knowledge is beneficial in helping educators reach out to families and encouraging parents to become involved in the school.

Attributes of Successful Partnerships• Mutual respect• Trust• Shared problem solving• Common vision and goals• Conflicts, when present, are openly

acknowledged and addressed• Focus

Elements of Collaboration

• Inclusive decision making

• Caring attitudes• Sharing information• Consideration of

cultural factors• Trust

• Considering the whole child

• Responsive services• Families as a

resource

Atmosphere: The Climate in Schools for Families and Educators

• What is consistently advocated is that schools must be welcoming, “family friendly” communities.

• True collaboration occurs with CORE - when these ingredients are present:

• Connection• Optimism• Respect• Empowerment

CORE

• Connection: • Trust building• Shared goals• Common vision• Conflict resolution

• Optimism: • Problems are systems, not individual, problems.

(interface)• No one person is to blame. (nonblaming, solution-

oriented)• All concerned parties are doing the best they can.

(nonjugmental, perspective taking)

CORE

• Respect:• Each person brings different, but equally valid

expertise to the problem-solving process.• Respect requires acceptance of differences, especially

perceptions about child’s performance.

• Empowerment:• Both parties have strengths and competencies.• Parents believe they can help.• Parents know a role for which they feel comfortable.• Parents see that their efforts make a difference in

achievement.

Involving the Uninvolved

• Newer school practices include:• Identifying families who are not responding to

current outreach and making a personal contact.• Keeping interaction focused on genuine interest

in improving the child’s school success.• Understanding parents’ goals for their children’s

education.• Being persistent about the importance of a

family learning environment.

Invitations and information, but also:

If the parent chooses not to participate, school personnel explain that they will do their part at school; however, they make it clear that this is only part of the equation for school success. We know children perform better if the school and home work together to achieve a shared goal for the child’s learning. Without in- and out-of-school time devoted to reading, the probability the child will perform less well on school tasks is increased.

Top Ten Toolsfor Constructive Team Building

• Collaboration• Patience• Flexibility• Assertiveness• Endurance

• Creativity• Commitment• Honesty• Appreciation• Chocolate

Tips for Parents

• Equal Partner• Express needs• Participate• Be Prepared• Develop Mutual

Goals• Put Away Negative

Experiences

• Follow through• Involvement with

other Parents• Consider Time• No Bashing• Support the Team

Tips for Professionals

• Value parent input• Respect

involvement• Avoid Jargon• Solicit involvement• Schedule at

convenient times

• Commit to the Plan• Connect Families• Convey interest• Be honest

• Remember, there is no "one size fits all" answer• Set clear and measurable goals• Develop a variety of outreach mechanisms• Provide a varied opportunities for participation• Give families and students complete information

expectations• Recognize a community's historic, ethnic, linguistic, and

cultural resources• Hire and train a family coordinator• Use creative forms of communication between educators

and families• Find positive messages to send to all families• Offer regular opportunities for families to discuss their

children's progress• Make sure that family members acting as volunteers in the

school have opportunities to help teachers• Provide professional development opportunities• Involve families in evaluating the effectiveness of family

involvement programs

NCPIE

Diversity

• Each person's map of the world is as unique as the person's thumbprint. There are no two people alike. No two people who understand the same sentence the same way .  .  . So in dealing with people, you try not to fit them to your concept of what they should be. -- MILTON ERICKSON

Contact Information

• Call us at 503-581-8156 or 888-505-2673 (toll-free in state only)

• Help-line 888-891-6784• Fax us at: 503-391-0429• E-mail us at: info@orpti.org• Website - http://www.orpti.org