Transcript Document

Engaging with Parents
The Power of Information, Responsiveness to Parental Need, and Ongoing
Support for the Enhanced Competence of All Students
National Association of School Psychologists
2010 Distinguished Lecture
Sandra L. Christenson, Ph.D.
Three Important Movements
Response to Intervention
 A data driven decision making process for
intervention design
Evidence-based Interventions and Practices
School-Family Partnerships
 The mesosystemic influence on students’
learning and developmental outcomes
In Check & Connect
A mentor works with students and partners
with families for a minimum of two years,
regularly checking on the educational
progress of the student, intervening in a
timely manner to re-establish and maintain
the student’s connection to school and
learning and to enhance the student’s
social and academic competence.
Check & Connect
Intensive
5%
Targeted
15%
Universal
80%
Check & Connect
 Treatment-control differences for secondary
students with disabilities in longitudinal designs:
 Improved attendance (absences, tardies, skips)
 Improved social skills and homework completion
 Enrolled in school and making progress towards degree
(credits earned)
 Higher graduation rates for five years
 Check & Connect has met the evidence-based
standards of the WWC for staying and progressing
in school (www.whatworksclearinghouse.gov)
No Longer Asking Why Partnerships?
Identification of effective programs, e.g.,
 Conjoint Behavioral Consultation (Sheridan)
 Eco-fit Model (Dishion)
 Incredible Year (Webster-Stratton)
Identification of components of successful
family-school collaborative interventions
(Carlson & Christenson, 2005)
Season effect – power of out of school time
(Alexander, Entwisle, & Olson, 2001)
Limited Use of Systems Thinking
 School personnel believe:
 Success in school is multi-determined
 Children learn everywhere
 And yet:
 Assessment and intervention generally tends to focus
on understanding the student in the context of the
school settings and what educators can do
 Shared goals + contributions + accountability
(Fantuzzo, Tighe, & Childs, 2000)
Mesosystem: Family-School Relationship
Teacher–
Student
Relationship
Parent–Child
Relationship
Family–School
Relationship
Who is at risk for school failure?
A fourth implication of “forgetting” the
power of the family-school relationship
piece, described by Pianta and Walsh
(1996), relates to how risk is
conceptualized.
 Not status variables (income, ethnicity), but
rather discontinuity
 Students educated in high risk vs. low risk
situations
Benefits of the Mesosystem
Power of the family-school relationship
Continuity in goals, expectations, and
messages about learning – shared language
Extend learning time
Across time and development
 Pay as much attention to the starting line as
we do the finish line
Three Cups of Tea
Process was not easy. . . “Dr. Greg, you must
take time to share three cups of tea. We may
be uneducated, but we are not stupid. We
have lived and survived here for a long time.”
 Stranger
 Honored guest
 Become family – and we would do anything
for family
The Important Lesson
“He taught me to share three cups of tea, to
slow down, and to make relationships as
important as building projects. He taught me I
had more to learn from the people I work
with than I could ever teach them.”
 Time to build trust, power of co-construction,
and role of problem solving
Integration of Three Movements
Response to Intervention supports
engaging with parents
 First sign of concern for the student
 Reason for connection is to improve student
outcomes
 Naturally allows for “complementary efforts
toward common and shared goals” (Seeley,
1985)
Structured problem solving and joint
monitoring of school performance
Organize Outreach to Parents
Intensive
5%
Targeted
15%
Universal
80%
Tier 1 - Universal: Information
 Develop a communication system
 Ensure parents know and understand school
policies and practices, effective teaching practices
and home support for learning, and recognize
their role in supporting their children’s learning
 Information sharing about course registration for
high school students – advancing academic rigor
of students’ course selection
Tier 2 – Targeted: Respond to Unique Needs
 To engage with some parents, we must attend to
unique needs of family circumstances.
 Benefit of responding to parents desires and goals
 Mentors dialogue with parents about personal
constraints and engage in problem solving
What resources or information do you desire to assist
your children’s learning?
 Distributed learning packets to homes to reinforce
classroom reading skills
 Parent education and Parent-Teacher conferences
Tier 3 – Intensive: Ongoing Support
 A very individualized focus – one that provides
ongoing support paired with information and
attention to family need.
 Regular, systematic contact:
 Voicemail, postcards
 Home or community visits and ongoing consultation
 News at nine – systematic monitoring of student
performance
 Mentors have engaged in many problem solving
meetings and ongoing dialogue
Persistence-Plus
 Persistence: There is someone who is not going to
give up on the parent or allow the parent to be
distracted from the importance of his or her
child’s learning.
 Continuity: There is someone who knows the
parent’s needs and desires and is available preferably across school years.
 Consistency: The message is that you are very
important for the educational and life success of
your child. We can find a way that works.
Principles for Engaging with Parents
 The reason for the relationship is to promote
positive learning experiences and outcomes for
the student.
 Ensure that parents have the information and
resources needed to support their children’s
learning.
 Perspective-taking is modeled and used in all
interactions
 Commitment to the relationships - Recognize that
trusting relationships build over time.
Practices of Engaging with Parents
Maintain a positive, honest orientation to
communication.
Develop a two-way communication system.
Structured problem solving
Invited, informed and were informed by, and
included families
Handle and manage conflict
Engaging with Parents means:
 Centrality of the mesosystem
 Continuity in messages and efforts
 Enhance and account for out-of-school learning time
 Focus of the family-school relationship is student
success at school
 Actions to join the two systems
 Enhance problem solving and conflict resolution
 Help teachers form relationships with families
 Support families to be an active partner
The Call for School Psychology
 Operate at a mesosystemic level and create
engaged partnerships in RtI
 “The central problem in the development of
partnerships is failure to establish collaborative,
trusting, empowering relationships between families
and educators that support effective service delivery.”
(Blue-Banning et al., 2004)
 Provide differentiated supports for parents
 The power of information, responsiveness to parental
need, and ongoing support
In closing . . .
Engaging with parents is more than a list of
6 ideas to help your teen
It is ongoing problem solving or what John
Fantuzzo has referred to as: shared goals +
contributions + accountability
For some families it takes more than “Three
Cups of Tea”
Focus on What We Can Control
 If the parent chooses not to participate, school
personnel can explain they will do their part at
school; however, they can make it clear that they
believe this is only part of the equation for
student success and they know the child would
perform better in school if the school and parents
partner to enhance children’s learning and
behavior. Parents need to be told explicitly that
without a shared effort toward a common goal,
the probability the child will perform less well on
school tasks is increased.
Contact Information
Sandra L. Christenson, Ph.D.
Birkmaier Professor of Educational Leadership
University of Minnesota
School Psychology Program
56 East River Road, 250 ESB
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612-624-0037 [email protected]
Thank you!
Selected References
 Alexander, K.L., Entwisle, D.R., & Olson, L.S. (2001). Schools,
achievement, and inequality: A seasonal perspective.
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23, 171-191.
 Barton, P.E., & Coley, R.J. (2007). The family: America’s smallest
school. Policy Evaluation and Research Center, Educational
Testing Service, Princeton, NJ.
 Blue-Banning, M., Summers, J.A., Frankland, H.C., Nelson, L.L.,
& Beegle, G. (2004). Dimensions of family and professional
partnerships: Constructive guidelines for collaboration.
Exceptional Children, 70, 167-184.
 Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Selected References
 Buerkle, K., Whitehouse, E.M., & Christenson, S.L. (2009).
Partnering with families for educational success. In C.R.
Reynolds & T.B. Gutkin (Eds.), Handbook of school psychology
(4th Ed.) (pp. 655 -680). New York: Wiley & Sons.
 Carlson, C., & Christenson, S.L. (Eds.). (2005). Evidence-based
parent and family interventions in school psychology [Special
issue]. School Psychology Quarterly, 20(4).
 Christenson, S.L., & Reschly, A.L. (Eds). (2010). Handbook of
school-family partnerships. New York: Routledge – Taylor and
Francis.
 Christenson, S. L., & Sheridan, S. M. (2001). Schools and
families: Creating essential connections for children’s learning.
Guilford Press.
Selected References
 Edwards, P.A. (2004). Children’s literacy development: Making it
happen through school, family, and community involvement.
Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
 Fantuzzo, J., Tighe, E., & Childs, S. (2000). Family involvement
questionnaire: A multivariate assessment of family participation
in early childhood education. Journal of Educational Psychology,
92(2), 367-376.
 Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful difference in the
everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore,
MD: Paul H. Brookes.
 Hoover-Dempsey, K. V., & Sandler, H. M. (1997). Why do
parents become involved in their children’s education? Review
of Educational Research, 67(1), 3-42.
Selected References
 Mortenson, Greg, & Relin, D. O. (2006). Three cups of tea.
Viking Publications.
 Pianta, R., & Walsh, D. B. (1996). High-risk children in schools:
Constructing sustaining relationships. NY: Routledge.
 Reschly, A. L., & Christenson, S. L. (2009). Parents as essential
partners for fostering students’ learning outcomes. In R.
Gilman, E. S. Huebner, & J. M. Furlong (Eds.), Handbook of
Positive Psychology (pp. 257-272). NY: Routledge.
 Seeley, D. S. (1985). Education through partnership.
Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research.
 Sheridan, S.M., & Kratochwill, T.R. (2007). Conjoint behavioral
consultation: A procedural manual. NY: Plenum.