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.
Family Involvement News: April 2013
We are committed to keeping you up to date on what's new in family engagement. View our list of links to current reports, articles, resources, and events in the field.
Quilting Stories of Innovation in Family Engagement
A collection of innovative family engagement practices with a link for you to share with us your family engagement story!
Q & A With S. Craig Watkins: Family Engagement in Connected Learning
In this Q & A, S. Craig Watkins discusses the family’s role in the connected learning model, and how students can link what they learn in schools, afterschool programs, and their communities using digital technology.
Parent–Teacher Conference Tip Sheets (Hojas de Consejos Para Las Reuniones de Padres y Maestros)
Even with technological advances that allow parents to track their child’s academic progress remotely, and more transparency in student data (such as test scores and attendance rates), face-to-face interaction between parents and teachers is still the cornerstone of school family engagement efforts. These newly revised tip sheets provide key strategies for both parents and teachers to walk into conferences informed and prepared, in order to ensure the most successful outcomes. A tip sheet aimed at school principals also outlines how school administrators can support parents and teachers to that end. Now available in Spanish, this tool is a powerful resource for families and educators alike.
Family Involvement News: June 2014
Find out in these resources what an online survey reveals about parent involvement in classrooms, why New York Schools chancellor Carmen Farina plans to encourage more student-led parent-teacher conferences, and how a Denver public-school teacher uses text messaging to reach out to parents during the school day. Also learn how some out-of-school time (OST) programs are making a shift from a “program-centered” to a “learning-centered” approach to family engagement in OST learning, and much more!
Explore More: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Resources
Children can develop 21st-century skills, even outside of the classroom. This resource guide offers hands-on, maker-inspired activities, along with advice from museums, libraries, and afterschool programs, for educators and families to use when exploring STEM topics with children.
Data on Data: A Resource Guide to Engaging Families with Student Data
This resource from HFRP offers a compilation of articles on families’ use of data to support, guide, and advocate for student achievement and schoolwide improvement. Resources are grouped into three categories: Perspectives that offer lessons learned from family and community use of data, program examples that illustrate what it takes to make data actionable for families, and tools that help everyone understand how data can be analyzed.
Tips for Administrators, Teachers, and Families: How to Share Data Effectively
This new set of tip sheets helps administrators, teachers, and families identify the best ways to share student data in meaningful ways, on a regular basis, to strengthen family–school partnerships and promote student learning. The tips can be used to guide the formal conversations that take place during parent–teacher conferences, but they are especially designed to help promote less formal, ongoing conversations about student progress among teachers, families, and students throughout the year.
Building Villages to Raise Our Children: Six Volume Set
This set of six volumes offers practical advice for establishing and managing a family support program.
Hard copy out of stock.
Challenges and Opportunities in Moving Family Involvement Research Into Practice (Presentation)
This presentation by HFRP staff was part of a conference entitled “Family–School Relations During Adolescence: Linking Interdisciplinary Research and Practice.” The conference was held July 20–21 and was hosted by the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University, sponsored by the American Psychological Association. The goal of the conference was to establish better links among research, practice, and policy related to family educational involvement during adolescence, particularly for families from ethnically and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds.
Free. Available online only.
Family Involvement News: Summer 2015
In our Family Involvement News, discover who is thinking about families in the reauthorization of ESEA, how home visits support engaged families, and why collaboration among schools, communities, and families is important for student success.
Building Villages to Raise Our Children: Collaboration
Written for program administrators and staff, this guide offers practical advice for establishing and managing community outreach in a family support program.
$10.00 . 66 Pages.
Q & A With Susan Leger Ferraro and Fran Hurley: Learning Through Technology-Infused Play
Creative anywhere, anytime learning experiences take center stage at Imajine That Museum and Educational Play Space, where families bring their children to play, socialize, and learn together as a family. Read this exciting Q and A with Susan Leger Ferraro and Fran Hurley, about how Imajine That provides an array of innovative learning opportunities to enthusiastic families.
Making the Case for Parental Involvement and Engagement: Part I: Parental, Family, School, and Community Partnerships Make a Difference (Workshop)
Engaging families in education holds tremendous potential for boosting children's achievement, but also ranks among educators' greatest challenges. Staff at Harvard Family Research Project paired up with staff at the Institute for Responsive Education at Cambridge College to make the case for family involvement to educators. Research and evaluation findings on the benefits, challenges, and effective strategies in family involvement were reviewed and illustrated with descriptions of established program models and exemplary practices from local schools.
Free. Available online only.
Family-School-Community Partnerships: A Compilation of Professional Standards of Practice for Teachers
This report summarizes the current family involvement standards of practice for teachers and other educators, as described by a variety of professional associations, including the National Parent Teacher Association, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Free. Available online only.
Family Involvement News: March 2012
We are committed to keeping you up to date on what's new in family engagement. View our list of links to current reports, articles, resources, and events in the field.
Findings From HFRP's Study of Predictors of Participation in Out-of-School Time Activities: Fact Sheet
This Fact Sheet summarizes findings and implications from HFRP's recently completed Study of Predictors of Participation in OST Activities. With funding from the W.T. Grant Foundation, we examined the child, family, school, and neighborhood predictors of children's participation in OST activities, paying special attention to disadvantaged youth.
Free. Available online only.
Teaching Cases on Family Involvement
Teaching cases are a valuable tool in preparing teachers and school administrators to engage effectively with families. This handout provides a detailed list of HFRP's teaching cases in family involvement, sorted by topic, gender, and age-group, as well as ethnicity, of the students discussed.
Helping Head Start and Early Head Start Programs Create a Culture That Embraces Data
A new interactive online learning module, Data in Head Start and Early Head Start: Creating a Culture that Embraces Data, developed by the National Center on Program Management and Fiscal Operations, helps Head Start/Early Head Start leaders understand how to use data to inform their decision making.
Building Villages to Raise Our Children: Community Outreach
Written for program administrators and staff, this guide offers practical advice for establishing and linking programs to service systems in a family support program.
$10.00 . 62 Pages.
Teaching the Bridging Worlds Case
Cases are a powerful tool to support teacher preparation in family engagement. Read how five faculty members facilitated the case Bridging Worlds: Family Engagement in the Transition to Kindergarten and learn how the case influenced both students and faculty.
Demographic Differences in Youth Out-of-School Time Participation: A Research Summary
This 2-page Research Summary synthesizes findings from two HFRP publications that examine demographic differences in children's OST participation. This summary, which contains a subset of findings contained in the Fact Sheet, presents key findings on differences in multiple dimensions of participation in a range of OST activities and among youth from varying family income levels and racial and ethnic groups.
Free. Available online only.
Family Involvement News: August 2009
We at Harvard Family Research Project are committed to keeping you up-to-date on what's new in family involvement. View our list of links to current reports, articles, events, and opportunities in the family involvement field.
Building Villages to Raise Our Children: Evaluation
Written for program administrators and staff, this guide offers practical advice for evaluating family support programs.
$10.00 . 66 Pages.