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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.
Review strategies to support the wellness of family services professionals and home visitors; the resource is written for program supervisors and leaders as well as family services staff and home visitors themselves.
Program leaders play an essential role in creating a healthy workplace by supporting policies and practices that minimize staff stress and burnout, promote staff wellness, and support high-quality family engagement.
A staff wellness action plan can promote and maintain a healthy workplace when the plan is informed by the needs and resources of all staff and community partners.
Staff wellness can be promoted by providing regular opportunities for staff self-care, including opportunities to socialize and relaxby making available tools for managing stress.
Staff wellness can be supported by offering training and technical assistance in ways to handle stressful times, such as when holding sensitive conversations, managing conflict, and dealing with trauma.
Providing staff with reflective supervision can improve staff wellness by addressing barriers to wellness, improving job satisfaction, and strengthening relationships throughout the program.
Promoting simple but effective ways to support one’s own wellness can contribute to the wellness of individuals who work with families, the overall program, and the families served.
These resources provide additional information and strategies to support staff wellness.
Programs can use this resource, created in partnership with parents, to guide the development of their family engagement strategies and parent leadership opportunities.
Learn how to effectively partner with families of children with disabilities. This partnership not only promotes children’s learning and development, but also supports family learning, advocacy, and leadership skills.
HeadStart.gov
official website of the Administration for Children and Families
