Family engagement is a collaborative and strengths-based process through which early childhood professionals, families, and children build positive and goal-oriented relationships. It is a shared responsibility of families and staff at all levels that requires mutual respect for the roles and strengths each has to offer. Family engagement focuses on culturally and linguistically responsive relationship-building with key family members in a child’s life. These people include pregnant women and expectant families, mothers, fathers, grandparents, and other adult caregivers. It requires making a commitment to creating and sustaining an ongoing partnership that supports family well-being. It also honors and supports the parent-child relationships that are central to a child’s healthy development, school readiness, and well-being. The Office of Head Start Parent, Family, and Community Engagement Framework is a guide to learning how family engagement promotes positive, enduring change for children, families, and communities.
Explore these comprehensive tools that help programs assess relationships, through an insight at the relationships between families and providers, teachers, and family services staff for children birth to 5 years of age.
The Research to Practice Series addresses each of the Family Engagement Outcomes of the Office of Head Start (OHS) Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (PFCE) Framework.
Programs collect and use a variety of family related data. This set of resources assist programs to gather, analyze, and share data with families that includes their voices and honors their perspectives.
This video shows how a program can partner effectively with families and community organizations to contribute to children’s school readiness.
The partnership between parents and staff is fundamental to children's current and future success in school readiness and beyond. Discover how programs can share information with families about children's learning and progress toward school readiness outcomes.
Review the requirements for developing a family partnerships process that identifies family strengths and needs and features an approach that individualizes services.
This standard requires programs to promote shared responsibility with parents for children’s early learning and development and offer opportunities to participate in a research-based parenting curriculum.
Head Start programs must integrate parent and family engagement strategies into all systems and program services to support family well-being and promote children’s learning and development.
Head Start programs recognize parents’ roles as children’s first and lifelong teachers. Review requirements for engaging parents and family members in the program's education services and policy implementation.
Explore this resource to understand the differences between parent involvement and family engagement. Learn why moving from parent involvement to family engagement practices can help you build strong relationships with families.