National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement
HFRP is one of the partner organizations forming the Office of Head Start National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (NCPFCE), which will identify and disseminate evidence-based best practices to Head Start programs across the country. Learn more about this project and HFRP's work with Head Start and Early Head Start programs here.
Parent, family, and community engagement is essential to meeting early childhood care and education goals such as school readiness, family well-being, and high-quality programs. To this end, HFRP strives to advance a comprehensive and systemic approach to family and community engagement in early childhood settings.
HFRP brings an interdisciplinary perspective to stimulate innovations in program development, family–provider relationships, and community collaborations. Our new work focuses on the use of student data systems to promote continuous family engagement from birth to school transition and throughout the school years, by providing families with the information they need to take action in support of their children’s development and education.
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION RESOURCES
Program Development
- The Head Start Parent, Family, and Community Engagement Framework: Promoting Family Engagement and School Readiness from Prenatal to Age 8
This framework is a vital tool for early childhood education and care providers seeking to build effective engagement strategies. While the framework is intended for Head Start and Early Head Start programs, its lessons are useful and applicable to a much broader audience of early childhood programs. - The Evaluation Exchange: Early Childhood Programs and Evaluation
This issue of The Evaluation Exchange charts the course of early childhood programming and evaluation over nearly half a century. Contributing authors offer a range of views on how best to communicate the importance of investing in a child’s early years and how to improve early childhood programs and policies. - The Home Visit Forum
This Forum sought to increase delivery efficiency, develop practice benchmarks that could improve quality, and create a better understanding of the role that home visitation could play in state and national systems to help young children and their families. Learn more about the research associated with the Forum here. - Breaking New Ground: Data Systems Transform Family Engagement in Education
This brief cites six case studies from across the country that reveal innovative efforts by early childhood programs and school districts to use student data systems to improve family engagement. Each profile illustrates a segment of a data pathway beginning in early childhood and continuing through students' academic careers. - Family Engagement in Early Education: A Resource Guide for Early Learning Challenge Grant Recipients
To support Race to the Top—Early Learning Challenge grant recipients’, HFRP produced this selective list of resources about engaging and supporting families with young children. This list of journal articles, practical guides, webinars, and presentations may also be helpful for any other states, districts, and local programs interested in expanding their family engagement work.
Family–Provider Relationships
- Ongoing Child Assessment and Family Engagement: New Opportunities to Engage Families in Children’s Learning and Development
This paper by the National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement, a new center formed by HFRP and Brazelton Center at Children's Hospital Boston and other partners for the Office of Head Start, focuses on child assessment data as a tool for parent and family engagement in the early childhood arena. It is the first in a series that will help early childhood care and education programs identify ways that they can share information in order to strengthen partnerships and work toward common goals. - Valuing Families as Partners
This article explores the benefits of creating strong partnerships between early childhood programs and families. These relationships influence young children’s outcomes in cognitive development and social skills, and lay the groundwork for supporting student achievement as children move through the school system. - Parent–Teacher Conference Tip Sheets for Principals, Teachers, and Parents
Designed to be used as a set, these tip sheets combine consistent information with targeted suggestions, so that parents and educators enter conferences with shared expectations and increased ability to work together to improve children's educational outcomes. - Teaching Cases on Family Engagement: Early Learning (Ages 0–8)
HFRP's teaching cases involve real world situations and consider the perspectives of various stakeholders, including early childhood program and elementary school staff, parents, children, and community members. This handout provides a detailed list of our teaching cases on family involvement, focusing on the earlier years of a child's learning and development.
Community Collaborations
- Advocating for the Rights of Undocumented Families
Moria Cappio and Melanie Reyes from The Children’s Aid Society share their experiences reinventing family engagement strategies in their East Harlem Early Head Start/Head Start program to reach out to immigrant families by including parent civic advocacy. Cappio and Reyes also describe how using an advocacy evaluation tool helped them navigate these uncharted waters. - The Transition to Kindergarten: A Review of Current Research and Promising Practices to Involve Families
The brief begins with an overview of the concept of transition and its importance to school success. It then examines transition practices that focus on families, considering both practices and key players in implementation It includes examples of promising transition practices that involve families and concludes with the presentation of a framework for the development of school and program transition teams that value family involvement.