The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
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All Publications & Resources WORKING WITH TEACHERS AND FAMILIES DEVELOPMENT PERIODS |
COMPLEMENTARY LEARNING CONNECTIONS
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Making Data Matter in Family Engagement
HFRP’s Heather Weiss and M. Elena Lopez authored a chapter on using performance data to engage families in the Handbook on Family and Community Engagement, published by the Academic Development Institute and Center on Innovation & Improvement, and available on the families-schools.org website.
Family Engagement: Looking Back and Moving Forward
In this issue’s commentary, Heather Weiss, M. Elena Lopez, and Heidi Rosenberg honor FINE's 10th anniversary by looking at the growth and learning in the family engagement field over the last decade. Family engagement is shifting from a “random acts” approach—numerous social, fundraising and educational activities that lack broad and deep connections to school improvement goals—to a more systemic, integrated, and sustainable framework of true family engagement. This commentary discusses what that means for HFRP and FINE in 2011 and beyond.
Breaking New Ground: Data Systems Transform Family Engagement in Education
HFRP and the National PTA® have teamed up for the second issue in our series of ground-breaking policy briefs. Breaking New Ground 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. The brief also includes a set of policy recommendations to help support the current trends in education that focus on twenty-first century learning and the vital role of technology.
Family Involvement Interventions: Shining the Spotlight on Evaluation (Symposium)
This panel symposium, held at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Chicago on April 10, 2007, followed up on HFRP's family involvement sessions at previous AERA meetings in 2005 and 2006. The 2007 symposium featured discussion regarding the evaluation of family involvement interventions
Bringing Families to the Table: Recommendations and Next Steps from the National Policy Forum for Family, School, and Community Engagement
One year after the National Policy Forum on Family, School, and Community Engagement, this report looks back at the major themes of the Forum discussions and offers a set of recommendations for driving family engagement in education as we move forward.
The Federal Role in Out-of-School Learning: After-School, Summer Learning, and Family Involvement as Critical Learning Supports (Voices in Urban Education, Summer 2009)
Our article in Voices for Urban Education makes a research-based case for the federal provision of out-of-school complementary learning supports.
New Research on Family Involvement and Academic Achievement (Symposium)
This multiple paper symposium at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association followed up on our panel session in 2005. It featured four research studies that used nuanced definitions of family involvement and cutting-edge methodologies to address processes of family involvement and academic outcomes for disadvantaged children across the developmental continuum.
Preparing Educators to Involve Families: From Theory to Practice
This book of research-based teaching cases and theoretical perspectives focuses on dilemmas in family-school-community relationships.
Preparing Educators to Engage Families: Case Studies Using an Ecological Systems Framework, Second Edition
This book supports teacher training and professional development in the area of family engagement. This volume helps prepare teachers and other professionals to partner with the families of elementary school children for student success and positive development. This second edition pairs child development theory with research-based teaching cases that reflect critical dilemmas in family–school–community relations, especially among families for whom poverty and cultural differences are daily realities.
School-Based Services: Traditional and Emerging Models to Address Barriers to Learning
This course will survey various models of community-based services that support students in schools. It will also cover implementation and evaluation of services.
MAKESHOP: Family Engagement in Exploration, Creativity, and Innovation
Jane Werner and Lisa Brahms, from the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, discuss the Museum’s innovative MAKESHOP studio space, which invites children and families to co-create projects and transforms the traditional museum visit experience.
Data Collection Instruments for Evaluating Family Involvement
As evidence mounts that family involvement can support children's learning, there is an increasing call in the field for common data collection instruments to measure home–school communication and other aspects of family involvement. This resource from Harvard Family Research Project compiles instruments developed for rigorous program impact evaluations and tested for reliability.
Seeing is Believing: Promising Practices for How School Districts Promote Family Engagement
We teamed up with the National PTA to bring you this ground-breaking policy brief that examines the role of school districts in promoting family engagement. The brief spotlights how six school districts have used innovative strategies to create and sustain family engagement “systems at work.”
Philanthropy for Innovation: Promoting Family Engagement through Strategic Funding and Program Development
Helen Westmoreland, Director of Program Quality for the Flamboyan Foundation—a private family foundation focused on improving educational outcomes for children in Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico—discusses how foundations and funders can support the development of effective family engagement practices in all schools.
Family Involvement Across Learning Settings
Families play important roles in supporting children’s learning not just in school but also in the many out-of-school contexts in which they learn. Harvard Family Research Project’s Helen Westmoreland talks about how families and nonschool learning settings, such as out-of-school time programs, museums, and libraries, can work together to promote student achievement.
How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies
How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies, a tool from Harvard Family Research Project, guides school districts to create a logic model that can aid in planning, implementing, assessing, and communicating about their systemic family engagement efforts.
Mothering the Mind and Soul: African American Mothers' Beliefs and Practices to Ensure Academic and Social Success for Their Daughters in High School
Interviews with African American mothers of successful high school daughters show that mothers maintain intense interest and direct involvement in multiple aspects of their daughters' educational lives but keep little contact with school officials.
Risk and Resilience in Children and Families: Implications for Public Policy
With the implementation of welfare reform, government's increasing reliance on block grants rather than categorical funding, increasing devolution of responsibility for service delivery to the state and local level, increasing use of contracted services, and growing budget shortfalls at all levels of government, the social safety net in the United States is undergoing rapid transformation. How well the emerging “system” will protect children and support families is unknown. This course is designed to examine current and proposed child and family policies.
Youth Out-of-School Time Participation: Multiple Risks and Developmental Differences
This paper examines whether youth who are at risk, according to child-, family-, school-, and neighborhood-level factors, are less likely to participate in out-of-school time activities, and whether the predictors depend on youth's age or socioeconomic status. Findings reveal that child- and family-level risks are most consistently related to youth's OST participation. However, these relationships emerge only in early and late adolescence, when youth have more autonomy in their decisions about non-school time use. For certain types of activities, namely those that require fees and financial commitments, contextual risks are more strongly associated with OST participation for higher SES families than for lower SES families.
Family and School Partnerships for Academic Success
Emphasis is on continuous family-school teamwork efforts. Attention is given to family background and social context. The course will cover effective family involvement programs/models and current research underscoring the dynamic interaction between families and schools on the academic success of pre-K through grade 8 students.
Preparation for Building Partnerships With Families: A Survey of Teachers, Teacher Educators, and School Administrators
This study examined the extent to which Kentucky's teachers are prepared to work with families in the roles which they play in the education of their children. These roles include being teachers, supporters, advocates, and decision-makers. The research questions addressed the pre-service preparation by institutions of higher education, staff development activities of local school districts, and gaps in preservice and practicing teacher levels.