family engagement in perspective: a family driven definition family-school-community partnerships...

Family Engagement in Perspective: A Family DrivenDefinition

Family-School-Community Partnerships Practice GroupNational Community of Practice on Collaborative School Behavioral Health

Claudette Fette Cynthia Glimpse 5/15/08

Goals

• Family-Schools-Community Practice group and working construct of community of practice

• Process and initial outcomes of family driven research toward definition and process model of family engagement

• Practice group validation of model• Discuss next steps … so what?

Community of Practice Introduction

Communities:• Are natural bonds between people who share common

values, goals and work,• Share learning within organizations, agencies and

roles,• Share learning across organizations, agencies and

roles,• Create new understanding and knowledge grounded

in doing work together.

A National Community is a tool to:

• Build understanding across groups,

• Carry out open communication around shared interests,

• Support shared work,

• Look at issues at many levels of scale.

Community of Practice Introduction

History:

• The community met in Dallas in 2004 under the guidance of the IDEA Partnership. There were representatives from the national technical assistance centers, national professional organizations, federal agencies and family members along with many others committed to children’s mental health and effective supports for school performance.

National CoP on School-based Behavioral Health:


History continued:

• The larger group broke up into smaller round tables and worked on specific questions that we had been given. The whole group identified issues that needed collaborative work and then the group prioritized those.

• The top eight became the practice groups. Participants committed to work with specific practice groups to identify and take action on specific needs related to the practice groups that they chose to be part of.


WHO is involved?

– 12+ states

– 21 National Organizations

– 4 Federal Agency Bureaus

– Hundreds of individuals

• There are now 11 practice groups that continue to identify specific work. The groups decide what they want to take on and work collaboratively toward meeting their goals. We do this through the www.sharedwork.org website, at national meetings and through conference calls.

• For families as well as each of the constituent groups participating, there are also opportunities to help across practice groups to share our unique perspectives, knowledge and skills across different areas of work.


HOW does it work?

A main idea is that instead of the old way of pushing good ideas onto people at other levels of scale, it is more efficient and effective to draw together leaders from across the field of school based behavioral health and create a pull for information and work.


Many of us have the experience of investing in finding out what best practices are and then trying to sell these to local systems for whom they are unfamiliar,

It makes sense to create a broad community that includes the brightest and most successful across many systems, organizations and roles to give support to the best practices that we would like to see in our schools.


Family-School-Community Partnerships Practice Group• Our mission is to provide information for families

and to ensure their participation as full partners who advocate and build leadership

• www.sharedwork.org National Community of Practice on Collaborative School Behavioral Health

Family-School-Community Partnerships Practice Group

Priorities:1. Educating and informing families to help them effectively

voice their needs to their school districts, in their communities and on state and national levels.

2. Advocating for and supporting the participation of families across community of practice groups.

3. Educating and informing schools, systems, policy groups and others about the importance of family integration in policy work.

4. Providing a place for family leaders to collaborate on discussion of needs, priorities and opportunities.

5. Supporting the work and efforts of families. 6. Supporting the diversity and strengths of all families.


• Feb 2008; the National Coordinating Committee on School Health and Safety requested a definition of Family Engagement– March – April ’08; the Family-School-Community

Partnerships Practice Group facilitated a discussion on www.sharedwork.org around 6 questions

– April ’08; FSCP PG members met in Washington and did qualitative analysis of question 1 responses

– May ’08; FSCP PG members presented draft definition to NCCSHS

– June, July & August ’08; qualitative analysis of questions 2 – 5


Development of Family Driven Definition

• 6 questions developed by family leadership in collaboration with broader community

• Online survey through www.sharedwork.org • 1st question:

How do you personally define family engagement?• 30 responses from across the country, predominantly from

family• Consolidation of redundancies and member checking • Qualitative Analysis using Grounded Theory

– line by line coding, – axial coding– member checking

Discussion Questions

1. How do you define family engagement? 2. Do you have examples of when you (as a family) felt

engaged by the following systems:– School– Mental Health– Juvenile Justice– Children’s Protective Services

3. What differences between systems (education, mental health, juvenile justice, protective services, etc.) do you see regarding family engagement?

4. Do you have examples of when you felt you were not engaged by the system?

5. What type of activity or approach works best to engage you?6. What are some barriers to engagement?

Line by Line Coding

• Coding was done by separating responses into lines and having 2 members “code” each line into the main idea for that line

• For example:Even teachers who are having trouble with him are

easier to remain engaged with when I feel that they are valuing both he and our family.

Was coded as: value student/family

Grounded Theory

Axial Coding

• Once each line had been coded, members of the practice group (and other family members) met and the codes were grouped into themes

• As the themes began to take shape, they suggested relationships to each other

Grounded Theory

Grounded Theory – axial coding & model building

Question 1

• 1st question:How do you personally define family

engagement?

• Using grounded theory, the responses to the first question were processed and they informed the draft model family driven definition of family engagement presented to the National Coordinating Board on School Health and Safety in May 2008

• The elevator definition…

Family engagement is an

active and ongoing process that facilitates opportunities for all family members to

fully participate and contribute in decision making for their children,

plus meaningful involvement in specific programs and with other families.

Elevator Definition

Value of Families

Unique perspective Invested Contributors

Communication Active Listen Clear & Open Comfortable Ongoing

Systems Valuing Promoting Support Give opportunity

Family Advocate Support family lead Train Engage

Family Goals Voice Knowledge Collaborate Advocate Support

System & Family Advocate:Respect, Inclusive, Consider barriers, give voice

Student OutcomesEmpoweredSuccessGoal workIndependenceFamilies

DevaluedDis-engaged

Families ValuedInvitedHeardRespectedInvolvedRelationship

Outcomes

Process

Family Engagement in Perspective Model

Roles in Engagement Respect Invite Collaborate Equal

Overarching Prerequisites:

Value of FamiliesIncentives to family engagement are based on the inherent

value of families as active participants. They bring a unique perspective and a deep knowledge of their child that comes from living with them day to day and they are valuable contributors to children’s success. When families are part of all discussions and solutions in all aspects of a child’s life, they are invested in the processes and buy into their part of the solution.

Overarching Prerequisites:CommunicationCommunication threads through all of the activities within family

engagement- it begins by actively listening to the views of the family and keeping open lines of clear communication. Communication is part of an active, ongoing process that values all contributions and encourages collaborative problem solving. Families must feel comfortable in voicing their concerns and sharing their goals, and they need to see them incorporated into their child’s school experience. The most effective partnerships occur when egos are left at the door and partners are committed to educating each other.

Systems

Valuing Promoting Support Give opportunity

Family Advocate

Support family lead Train Engage

Individual Family

Goals Voice Knowledge Collaborate Advocate SupportShared Responsibilities

Respect, Inclusive, Give voice, Consider barriers

Roles in Engagement• Collaborate• Equal

• Respect• Invite

Roles in Engagement

Roles in Engagement• Engagement is key to successful partnerships. It is

inviting, respectful and collaborates with the family to support their achieving their goals for their child. Families are present at the table and enter into equal partnership with the school and participate in the decision making process for their child. It begins early and continues through transition, including both formal and informal activities.

• Systems, Family to Family Organizations, & Families each have roles in engagement

System• Systems set the tone by valuing family involvement and

promoting inclusion of families as equal team members in all aspects of a child’s educational experience.

• Families must be given genuine opportunity to define policy and practice related to programs and activities in which their children will be involved, within formal, informal, and community based educational processes.

• Systems should not limit the ways that families can participate but should allow participation whenever families can participate.

• Families need to be supported through opportunities to interface with social, educational, and community systems plus resources based on their needs as they define them.

Roles in Engagement

Family to Family Organizations/Advocates• The family is the team leader and they should be provided

training by experienced parents so that families understand the process from the beginning.

• Families need to be actively engaged in supporting themselves and others, in finding solutions to issues through family involvement in formal school, transition, and community based systems and processes.

Family Advocate & System Joint Responsibilities:

• Engagement is designed to be family friendly, respectful, and inclusive of all family members.

• Potential barriers are considered and addressed with the family. • Families have a voice at all levels and in the full spectrum of

programs and services.

Roles in Engagement

Individual Families

• Families help determine what works best to facilitate their participation.

• They take responsibility for contributing their knowledge, their goals and their voice as active members of the team.

• They contribute their knowledge of their child’s strengths, weaknesses, needs, and learning styles.

• They work collaboratively with the school and assure follow through with the plans that they helped develop.

• They advocate for their child’s right to a free appropriate public education.

Roles in Engagement

Outcomes

Families Valued• When families are valued, systems and processes

are inviting, welcoming, and family friendly. • The school culture attaches importance to listening

and recognizes the valuable input of family members.

• Families are respected as equal team members and parent’s input and involvement are valued in decision-making processes.

• Relationships based on trust and respect are fostered with students and families.

Families Devalued• When families are not offered training or information

to enable them to be equal status partners on the team and are looked down on as lacking in knowledge or value, their voice is never heard, and they disengage.

• Opportunities throughout the year, beyond an annual Individual Education Program (IEP) meeting are overlooked.

• When families are invited to become engaged but are not valued or respected as contributors, their voices are not heard and they may experience attempts at engagement as ironic or disrespectful.

Outcomes

Student Outcomes when

Families are Valued• Schools and family prioritize their ultimate goal of

empowering the student to become a successful adult; focusing on success and positive outcomes.

• Youth are supported and encouraged to become as independent as possible as they move toward their goals and aspirations.

Outcomes

Value of Families

Unique perspective Invested Contributors

Communication Active Listen Clear & Open Comfortable Ongoing

Systems Valuing Promoting Support Give opportunity

Family Advocate Support family lead Train Engage

Family Goals Voice Knowledge Collaborate Advocate Support

System & Family Advocate:Respect, Inclusive, Consider barriers, give voice

Student OutcomesEmpoweredSuccessGoal workIndependenceFamilies

DevaluedDis-engaged

Families ValuedInvitedHeardRespectedInvolvedRelationship

Outcomes

Process

Family Engagement in Perspective

Roles in Engagement Respect Invite Collaborate Equal

Question 1

Remaining Discussion Questions2. Do you have examples of when you (as a family) felt

engaged by the following systems:– School– Mental Health– Juvenile Justice– Children’s Protective Services

3. What differences between systems (education, mental health, juvenile justice, protective services, etc.)

4. Do you have examples of when you felt you were not engaged by the system?

5.What type of activity or approach works best to engage you?6. What are some barriers to engagement?

Family Driven Model of Engagement Process for remaining data• June - July

– Line by line coding of responses from questions 2 – 6 among members

– Axial coding and constant comparison to identify themes• July - August

– Member checking against original data– Crafted draft document

• September 25-27– Member checks for completeness with larger group and solicitation of

additional data toward redundancy at this morning’s breakfast and lunch sessions

– Validation and prioritization of themes with members in person

Process of Development• Online survey through www.sharedwork.org • 6 questions developed by family leadership in collaboration

with broader community• 1st question:

How do you personally define family engagement?• 30 responses from across the country, predominantly from

family• Consolidation of redundancies and member checking • Qualitative Analysis using Grounded Theory

– line by line coding, – axial coding– member checking

Data Analysis

• This morning’s breakfast and lunch FSCP practice group meetings; presentation of complete draft model and member checking

• Breakfast: Member checking of draft definition and themes around barriers

• Lunch: Member checking of continuum of themes toward increasing engagement

• So what?

Question 2 - 6

• Family Driven Model– Themes built directly

from family responses to discussion

– Relationships across themes

– Model gives continuum from family and systemic barriers through effective family engagement

Isolation-ExperiencesFearMistrust

Stigma - AttitudesAdministrative Barriers

Barrier Themes

• Theme 1 - Family Barriers • Theme 2 - System Barriers • Theme 3 - Decreased Knowledge • Theme 4 - Negative Communication• Theme 5 - Lack of Resources • Theme 6 - Decreased Respect• Theme 7 - Inflexibility • Theme 8 - Fragmentation • Theme 9 - Barriers to Family Leadership• Theme 10 - Threats

Engagement Themes

• Theme 11 - Differences based on specific systems• Theme 12 - Respect• Theme 13 - Communication• Theme 14 - Strengths• Theme 15 - Taking Initiative• Theme 16 - Family as Experts• Theme 17 - Teamwork• Theme 18 – Positive Outcomes

Theme 1: Family BarriersIsolation – • Families reported:

– feeling alone in their experiences, coping with social isolation and cultural factors related to isolation.

– love for their children but feeling sad and alone, and having limited contact with families raising children like theirs.

• My family (friends) has pretty much disavowed us, they don’t

want much to do with my son.

• I felt frustrated and lost because I did not have anywhere to turn; besides the fact that I felt alone and saddened for my child.

• The community I belonged to while growing up was mainly a white middle-class family. Being a female student of color with strong connections to my family’s culture and community outside of school, I would not have known what engagement was.

Barriers to Engagement

Theme 1: Family Barriers

Negative Experiences – Families shared negative teacher interactions, children’s experiences with

school as painful and threatening and consequences of negative experiences.

– Families spoke of the negative impacts on their child’s mental health, school performance and family life.

• She [daughter] considers these years as emotionally abusive; the staff from the principal on down were calling her a fake.

• One teacher rode our son to the point of breakdown … he turned over his desk in frustration and ran screaming out of the school … was later found by the police wandering the neighborhood … and required hospitalization for 3 months.

• Teacher conferences were traumatic …when I introduced myself, her face dropped and she looked at her feet … I don’t know what she said, I just started crying and left.

Theme 1: Family Barriers

Fear & Mistrust • Families

– feeling intimidated, afraid of embarrassment, negativity, truth and stigma

– feeling hopeless, stressed and cynical & found it difficult to trust– not feeling welcome– overwhelmed with their everyday stressors, – afraid of the unknown and seeking help – some parents were coping with their own mental illness.

• Everyone here knows everyone else, most are afraid to seek help.

• You also have the stigma of having a mental illness, going to the clinic.

• I tend to shy away from giving anyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to my child and her needs.

Theme 2: System Barriers

Stigma• Families identified

– lack of priority for mental health in legislation or funding– public judgment and societal lack of recognition of the difficult

realities that families raising children with mental health needs face– need for a cultural shift toward taking individual responsibility across

the community for providing opportunity for adequate social support and full involvement in the community.

• People need to understand that mental issues isn’t something we wanted to happen, but it did.

• It is only through a sufficient capacity to recognize these difficulties that the average person has an opportunity to choose to accept the realities of them.

• Attitudes block full involvement of parents and the child in any part of the process.


Negative Attitudes (part 1)• Judgmental attitudes included frustration with

– being compared to an ideal that they should somehow meet – the burden of change being placed entirely on the child and family with

little perceived willingness on the system’s part for change. – having to listen to negative comments about their children.

• Tell me what my family should be doing, what we should look like by your standards and be willing to change nothing about your approach. Those are the barriers that my family faced.

• Court was an intimidating and cold process anyway, but we would show up and get the regular lecture from the bench, but there was no effort to engage us in crafting potential solutions.


Negative Attitudes (part 2)• Professionally driven: families reported

– professionals who presented as condescending and defensive, and as devaluing parental input

– their knowledge of their child in different environments was disregarded and they were put in adversarial positions with limited input on individual school, probation or treatment plans

– professionals in one system frequently disregarded input from other professionals in other systems.

• When we attempted to form a partnership with our local district in Kindergarten, we were told that they did not need our input. They were the experts. We should just let them handle it and get back to parenting.

• I did not feel that my engagement went beyond being asked for an opinion. I am not sure how much it impacted the direction of the treatment plan that was provided.

• The probation officer was judgmental, hard and not willing to listen to anything we had to say, nor anything that the therapists said. It was a professionally driven system and we were absolutely the problem.


Administrative Barriers • Families reported

– some systems with agendas that work against families like focus on high stakes testing, predetermined tracks for individual children, increased demands on teachers and lack of administrative support for effective practices

– Individual systems challenges include profit motives, mandatory participation and financial disincentives for change

– Some administrators were seen as invested in maintaining the status quo and even as perpetuating bureaucratic inefficiency/ineffectiveness and stifling teacher creativity.

• Administrators wishing to keep status quo as the goal interfere with good teachers abilities to educate our children.

• Bureaucracy and group think perpetuate inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

Administrative Barriers continued:

• Families also identified – interagency rule conflicts and lack of collaboration as a barrier at the systems

level. – difficulty complying with simultaneous directives in different systems that

contradicted one another and confusion regarding whose direction to follow.

• When we were in compliance with the child protection regs, the probation officer would demand we change strategies and it would be in direct conflict with child protective services.

• School would demand we put our child on meds, probation would say no, CPS would insist that we do, agency and psychologist would insist that he didn’t need them.


Theme 3:

Decreased Knowledge

• Families reported lacking adequate knowledge across education, mental health and juvenile justice systems. – lack of specific education and jargon decreases

confidence/effectiveness asserting needs.

• Most parents don’t know special education and other laws; its harder to learn about a system when you are not part of it.

• We wasted a lot of time on therapies that were just stupid (behavior modification) because we did not know the difference.

Theme 3: Decreased Knowledge

• Lack of knowledge within systems – lack of:– knowledgeable and skilled staff across systems– knowledge about specific diagnoses spanning both externalizing and

internalizing disorders– knowledge about students with mental health needs, supports for child

and family resilience and recovery and capacity to provide adequate support and follow-up and follow through.

– professional education to support quality evaluation, development of appropriate resources and supports, and ongoing assessment

– research to identify evidence based interventions for specific populations in specific situations

• Lack of knowledgeable and skilled staff in many systems – many do not even know what they are seeing, much less what to do to support family resilience and recovery.

• One of the more telling issues was the total lack of understanding our child’s chronic depression by school personnel.

• Families stated – Confidentiality protections in some areas prevent families from being fully

informed and privacy is used as a scapegoat to prevent families supporting each other

– Information is difficult to access and rarely offered freely– In mental health settings families reported difficulty getting therapists to listen

to parental concerns, sessions that focused on negatives, left limited time for questions and left families hanging

– Difficulty communicating with teachers outside of the school day, and problems with adversarial interactions with teachers including regular negative phone calls, and interactions.

– Children and families were the subjects of talk that hurt– Communication sometimes started out strong at the start of the year and then

faded.

• The looks from the teachers when they could not come up with a positive thing to say about my son.

• We would leave sessions in tears – both of us feeling much worse than when we entered – the therapist would not listen to my concerns.

Theme 4: Negative Communication

Theme 5: Lack of Resources

• Limited family resources for engagement include: – difficulty finding providers who see children and are covered by their funding. – discouragement and decreased energy after struggling to access resources – difficulties getting to appointments due to travel time and transportation issues,

missed work, inconvenient scheduling and childcare. • System limitations for engagement include:

– lack of funding for the quality and quantity of services needed, – funding shortfalls promote focus on gatekeeping, lack of time to respond

thoughtfully to the needs of children and too many children to serve, – lack of volunteers, – lack of extracurricular and community opportunities for successful participation, – lack of energy to try new methods and engage in collaborative work.

• Mental health services are at least 30 minutes away … for most it takes a minimum of one hour to pick up the child and take him to the appointment. Then you have the appointment (1 hour) and the hour to return your child to school and you to work.

• The system can beat one down and prevent them from moving forward for fear that nothing will change.

• [lack of] time – to meet, to think, to redirect.

Theme 6:

Decreased Respect

• Respect was cited as a significant systems barrier to family engagement.

• Families reported: – lack of attention to strengths, – limited respect for families’ experiences, – devaluing of family members’ ideas and input and of their time, – lack of understanding of the varying levels of family support,

strengths and willingness to assist – blaming families prevented their connecting to systems and

decreased engagement.

• [It was like they thought] I wasn’t a good parent and didn’t want to raise my son right.

• [There was a] lack of respect for my family and our experience

Theme 7: Inflexibility (part 1)

• Generally families stated failure to see their child as individuals as barriers to engagement– focus on providing legal minimums, – lack of individualization, – lack of access to quality education and role models, – intimidation and procedural barriers as obstacles to engagement – failure to celebrate individual differences and to see children and families

as unique.

• I didn’t like the idea that I had to be at my wits end before someone said, “Have you heard of…”

• They foster a mentality that differences are to be hidden instead of celebrated.

• [Systems should] push the limits of legal requirements to maximize what is identified as system responsibilities … the spirit not the letter.

A subtheme looked specific failures within educational systems to provide appropriate accommodations. Families reported

– schools missed meaningful understanding of students by failing to really get to know them and to appreciate their strengths,

– delayed getting help and failure to provide trained teachers, – teachers had difficulty effectively teaching children with mental health

needs,– schools failed to take family concerns seriously and this delayed access– children with mental health needs were discounted and families, hoping

for innovative ideas and support, were forced into adversarial roles.

• They did not take the time to get to know my child and they did not want to.

• He could do B and C work just not in the quantity she [teacher] demanded. He was a hard worker … all he needed was appropriate accommodation for the quantity of work.

• She was assigned instead to someone who had no previous training in inclusion and no intention of engaging her in any instruction.

Theme 7: Inflexibility (part 2)

Theme 8: Fragmentation

Lack of collaboration was cited as a systemic barrier and families– asked for increased consistency, coordination and collaboration across

systems – cited systems conflict for dropping children and blocking appropriate and

necessary support– identified difficulty managing redundant services and conflicts between

different agency missions as well as systems using each other to pass off responsibility for children with mental health issues.

• At one point our treatment team included 2 therapists, one agency, school psychologist, probation officer, child protection case manager – just to name a few.

• When they (mental health) did see him, they framed his problems as a juvenile justice problem … juvenile justice framed him as a mental health problem … neither really wanted to deal with him. It was like we were playing table tennis with him.

• In order for these systems to be successful in helping families, there needs to be collaboration among the groups.

Many parents said that schools did not have staff that could intervene appropriately

• Not once did they consider working with the system that was helping our child, the local mental health agency personnel.

• We wondered why the label ED was applied to our child as there were no experts in the school system to assist our severely depressed adolescent.

• Wouldn’t it be much easier to have services in the school where the parents do not have to take off of work and the child is de-escalated in a timely manner and he/she is often returned to class in 10 – 30 minutes as opposed to missing hours out of the day?

Theme 8: Fragmentation

Theme 9: Barriers to

Family Leadership

• Families reported specific barriers in systems to family leadership– Many systems fail to value family leadership– Lack knowledge about engaging families, – May even disallow family leadership within their system– Do not attend to connecting families to one another, – Do not allocate resources to training and hiring family

professionals. – Lack of family engagement tools was also cited.

• It appears families are not allowed to be active participants in some systems.

• There seems to be a huge problem with connecting family members to one another.

Theme 10: Threats

Families reported – Feeling frightened of systems and discussed voluntary versus

mandatory involvement – Turf issues across systems– Fear of removal from the systems that they rely upon – Difficulty accessing information – Difficulty with access to the processes around determining services

and placement– Having to chase information

• Parents have to give in or the child will be removed from the school.

• But I could understand why some parents would give up and avoid contact at the school as all costs!

• I perceive differences in the type of engagement when involvement is mandated versus voluntary. Ability to benefit, commitments and maintaining change processes may differ.

Small Group Work

• What barriers ring true for your system?

• Do you recognize any others that you remember being true at one time that your system has moved past?

Theme 11Differences based on Specific Systems

1. Mental Health2. Juvenile Justice3. Children’s Protective Services4. Schools

Families reported issues within mental health, juvenile justice, child protective services and schools that represented unique barriers and attractors to family engagement. Some families stated that they felt most supported by one system or another or conversely that particular systems presented with greater barriers to engagement.


Mental Health - Families reported barriers as– engagement limited to child rather than including

engagement at a policy level– lack of choices among providers & lack of follow through – Both mental health and child welfare systems as better at

recognizing the need to engage families and in focusing on the needs of the child (than school/juvenile justice systems)

• This engagement is targeted to my son only and not to policy development or generally programs and services.

• The mental health system frequently gives me the brush off and [demonstrates] poor follow through skills.

Mental Health - Families reported strengths as – showing respect for families, validating concerns & creating a safe

place to share– demonstrating flexibility and a focus on child and family strengths– communication with families

Therapists who were a good fit and worked with the family is important.

• When we finally found a good fit for my daughter, things went very well.

• They [mental health] worked very closely with us to help bring stability back to our child’s daily life



Juvenile Justice - Families reported concerns as – engagement is often mandatory, non-voluntary involvement– feeling shamed and frustrated with their experience – individual probation officers varied broadly in their interactions with families

from indifferent to antagonistic to supportive – systems do not attend to family match with probation officers– difficulty with follow through in these systems & uncertainty regarding

outcomes.

• [After the second probation officer was] deemed ineffective by his bosses although he had complete compliance from the family, the third attacked our family and told us that we should never have been allowed to be parents.

• They say so many hours have to be served etc but don’t follow through with it.

Juvenile Justice: Families identified strengths as– access to resources when they could not get help in

other systems – combined mental health professional linking juvenile

justice, mental health and school was successful in increasing resources for student success

– being respected and included as part of the team increased engagement

• Having someone who understood both the dynamics of the student and the system led to everyone working together.



B. Child Protective Services - Families stated concerns – mandatory involvement – handling of false reports

Families reported – being respected and– being included as part of the team increased their engagement.

• This agency was a major part in our lives, and for the most part it was a positive experience.

• Even complaints that are proved unsubstantiated remain in the record. This is not helpful to families that are truly trying to improve the lives of kids.

• Answer the question – How can I connect with and support this family in supporting their child’s education, mental health, response to criminal activity, or on managing disability, anger or economic problems that led to a neglectful situation.


Schools - Families reported – feelings of isolation – frustration around getting their children’s needs met– decreased engagement in systems that failed to respect the

family’s role and made it clear that family involvement was not welcome

– frustration with schools that lacked knowledge of mental health issues

– Frustration with concentration on meeting mandates rather than retaining focus on the needs of children

• The school system seemed to be at a loss, merely wanted to fill out the IEP forms while the mental health system focused on our child’s well being, involvement with school and community, daily activities, and how we were all coping.

• Sometimes it felt like we had forged the way all alone not only for our child and her siblings that followed her as they moved through the system but for others as well.

• The local district said “We’re the experts, you worry about parenting, we’ll worry about educating”

Families attested to the power of the school’s understanding of the role of families as a powerful determinant of whether the school was a supportive environment or a hurdle to overcome



Schools - Families reported – instances of school staff taking initiative, – demonstrating respect, – focusing on child and family strengths and – valuing family partnerships as fostering family engagement. – supportive teachers and staff and creative plans that use children’s

strengths and give them the opportunity to succeed in school supported family engagement.

– families appreciated being a valued member of the team both for their children and in support of other families.

– partnerships between systems and with family to family leadership as valued practices.

• Creative 504 plans and IEP’s were the beginnings of success for our family with the school system.

• The first point of engagement is that moment, after I have introduced myself, when the teacher or other school staff looks me in the eye and says something positive about my child.

Theme 12Respect

A. Value Families

B. Hopes & Dreams

C. Individuality & Family Culture

Theme 12Respect

A. Value Families - Families reported – engagement begins with valuing families and listening– develops into relationships which result in positive changes– difficulty establishing trust & asked that systems first listen and respect

their experience– sometimes families need to rant and asked that agencies recognize their

need to do so and not judge them but rather hang in there– preference for direct communication that is positive, value genuine

questions– desire to know that their ideas, concerns and goals are the priority -

want to be included before any decisions are made about their children – need to know that their child is valued

• When I sit down to a table as a family member and people speak to me and include me instead of speaking down to or around me or as if I am not even in the room, I feel valued.

• I do not place my trust very quickly and so need a little time to make sure that the person I am speaking with is going to respect me.

• When [they] listen to me with their heart not their learned books on the subject.

Theme 12Respect

B. Hopes & Dreams - Families want children to – experience success– learn– have friends and funThey shared a desire to prioritize the child’s interests and

recognition of their uniqueness.

• I have watched my child grow, struggle, fail, succeed.

• The methods to solutions may vary by entity but in the end the most important piece is that the child and their best interests are the sole goal.

• I want my child to experience life in a positive way.

Theme 12Respect

C. Individuality & Family CultureFamilies asked

– that systems honor their unique culture – recognize their perspective on the challenges that they face – for activities that celebrate their diversity and recognize their strengths – for flexibility and willingness to craft individualized plans that fit their

frameworks.– for compassion for their efforts

• [Find] ways to get involved that match family strengths and culture rather than just offering traditional practices and expecting those to automatically work.

• [We need] recognition that our concerns are difficult whether understood or not … accept the difficulties as reality.

Theme 13Communication

Families identified need to– be heard regarding their insights into their child’s

behavior – share their experience with other people who have

shared experience– receive honest information – be an integral part of a decision making team.– access to information without having to know the

right questions to ask– have assistance to understand the mental health,

behavioral, interpersonal and educational information that they need to support their children

Specific behaviors important to communication with families include use of humor, being kind and encouraging, using good eye contact and active listening strategies, providing a comfortable atmosphere, returning calls in timely fashion, identifying children’s positive attributes and behaviors, and being honest & direct.

• Be NICE and we will do anything we can to help.

• I felt engaged when she would confer with me regarding the status of my child’s improvements. When she actually listened to me, and took into consideration what I offered, I felt engaged and valued.

• I could send notes to school, ask for a meeting or call when I would like them to check on her for me.

• She not only taught my son how to handle his problems but she helped me to not contribute to the problem.

Theme 13Communication

Theme 14Strengths

• Another strong theme families shared is the need to build on the strengths of children and families.

• Decreasing focus on deficits and increasing strengths based understanding of behaviors supports family engagement.

• Families value entities taking a genuine interest in their children and demonstrating responsiveness to their needs.

• To hear that they recognized her positive qualities and saw potential in her with the right supports in place gave me an overwhelming amount of comfort.

• The best approach for me is to remove the focus on deficits and build on my child’s strength.

• A smile and [saying] something positive about my child goes a long way.

Theme 15Taking Initiative

Families cited many specific incidences where teachers– advocated for proactive strategies to prevent problems & expected

positive outcomes – asked for parental input & treated parents as peers– identified specific strengths & built opportunities for children to

experience success– carefully selected curriculum and interventions & attended to outside

activities that were important to the child and encouraged bringing these into the classroom,

– embedded educational tasks individually into meaningful outside work to promote success both within the classroom and in the larger community

– took a broader developmental view of the children under their charge and supported meaningful age appropriate participation in normative rites of passage (prom, football games, school leadership)

– took initiative to look into the future and suggested supports to ensure continued success beyond their term of responsibility

Theme 15Taking Initiative

• When the [regular education] teacher met with me during the parent-teacher conference and knew exactly what my daughter’s skills were.

• It was so nice to be able to work with such talented people to help my son succeed in school and handle his mental health issues with little disruption during the day.

• When the teacher let the mother of a young man in her class know that my daughter wanted him to be the one to take her to the prom so that the mom could coach her son who actually got up the nerve and ASKED my daughter to prom. The same teacher invited two couples who were going to the prom to her house and served them dinner and took them to the prom so that we might go to the Grand March like any other parent.

Theme 16Family as Experts

Families report family leadership is supported when systems– appreciate the expertise that families bring to the table– recognize the benefits of framing interactions with families from a

positive rather than punitive stance

• When the team realizes that I have good information and that yes, they know my child but they recognize that I am the expert on my child and not just there because the law says so.

• View parents as critical pieces of providing our children with needed supports by recognizing our perspective as significant and necessary.

• Include us and children in the process of determining needs, accommodations, outcomes

Theme 17Teamwork

• Families recognize themselves as team members when – they are valued and respected – when the team works in a responsive and collaborative manner to

meet children’s needs– education and treatment plans are developed in an active partnership

with families with high levels of family engagement– families are provided with support and education– plans include shared outcomes

• Being part of the team instead of being patronized is when I feel engaged by systems.

• IEP meetings fully center around what all members see and think.

• Partner with me in finding solutions … please don’t just tell me what we are going to do.

Theme 18Positive Outcomes

Strong family engagement leads to – increased resources for systems and other families as families who have

successfully negotiated systems become leaders. – family leaders provide vital supports for other families as well as for

systems. These experienced families may staff resource centers, serve as strong

governance, and they may provide increased community service by developing family run support organizations.

• After the second program, I was asked to sit on the Board of Directors for that agency and helped make some very positive changes for other families in the agency policy and procedures.

• When I began advocating, their respect for my family’s experience and their willingness to look at it as an opportunity to work together for change engaged me.

• I was proud to open my own child care to be there for my own son and other children with issues.


• Family engagement increased – reciprocal relationships between families and systems, – sustenance of a culture of ongoing engagement.– families are seen as valued allies– family support to system when the system does experience difficulties– relationships between families and systems – families service beyond their own children.

• Respecting me as someone of value and engaging me as an ally rather than a problem helped.

• If there were problems they knew I was coming to them with a sincere concern for their welfare and not just reacting.

• I remained a very active volunteer and built relationships with all the people that served or supported our children in their elementary years.

The ultimate outcome of increased family engagement is increased success for children and youth. Schools and family prioritize their ultimate goal of empowering the student to become a successful adult, focusing on success and positive outcomes. Youth are supported and encouraged to become as independent as possible as they move toward their goals and aspirations.


So What?

• Next steps include – Publication of the model – Work to identify where systems are in terms of

family engagement – Identification of processes of assimilation,

accommodation and adaptation to facilitate increasing family engagement within systems

Small Group Work

• Where along the spiral are the systems that you work with?

• What are some potential next steps to facilitate activity in the next proximal theme of family engagement?

IsolationExperiencesFearMistrust

Stigma AttitudesAdministrative Barriers

1. Where are you?

2. Next steps up spiral?

Contact Information• Claudette Fette

[email protected]

• Cynthia [email protected]

National Community of Practice on Collaborative School Behavioral Healthwww.sharedwork.org

family engagement in perspective: a family driven definition family-school-community partnerships...

Documents

community practice group

specific practice groups

practice process

national organizations

national cop

specific work

collaborative work

shared work