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.
Using Technology to Link Evaluation and Funding: San Francisco’s Contract Management System
Tajel Shah and Nani Coloretti of the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families describe a web-based contract management system for youth programs.
Untangling Logic Models and Indicators: Reflections on Engaging Stakeholders
Seema Shah, a researcher at the Institute for Education and Social Policy, shares her experience of engaging community organizing groups to develop a logic model on how community organizing leads to better student outcomes.
Sharing Assessment Data With Preschool Families in Preparation for Kindergarten
What are the benefits and challenges of sharing assessment data with preschool families? How can you do so effectively? A preschool teacher writes about her experiences, and provides valuable tips on how to share data with families in preparation for kindergarten.
New Skills for New Schools: Preparing Teachers in Family Involvement
This report reviews teacher certification requirements for all 50 states and the District of Columbia and examines 60 teacher education programs that mention family involvement. The report also identifies nine teacher education programs that focus on family involvement as an important concept, engage students in hands-on activities, and promote a broad concept of family involvement that recognizes the value of home-school collaboration.
Free. 76 Pages.
Supporting Latino Families: Lessons From Exemplary Programs Vol. 1
This report investigates 11 family support programs that have addressed the needs of vulnerable Latino families. The report clearly demonstrates the need to incorporate culture and family values into the very design of a program. Volume One provides detailed analysis of the various strategies and distills lessons for practitioners; Volume Two provides an in-depth profile of each program.
Hard copy out of stock.
Supporting Latino Families: Lessons From Exemplary Programs Vol. 2
This report investigates 11 family support programs that have addressed the needs of vulnerable Latino families. The report clearly demonstrates the need to incorporate culture and family values into the very design of a program. Volume One provides detailed analysis of the various strategies and distills lessons for practitioners; Volume Two provides an in-depth profile of each program.
Hard copy out of stock.
Challenges in Evaluating Systems Reform
Kathleen Shaw, Senior Researcher at Harvard Family Research Project, summarizes a new HFRP work in progress, Systems Reform: Challenges for Evaluation Research.
Challenges in Evaluating Comprehensive School-Linked Services: Toward a More Comprehensive Evaluation Framework
Presented at the 1995 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, this paper discusses the evaluation challenges facing complex school-linked services and describes and assesses how 18 such initiatives have been evaluated. Includes detailed charts and tables.
$10.00 . 40 Pages.
Evaluating School-Linked Services
Kathleen Shaw and Elaine Replogle of Harvard Family Research Project summarize the working paper by HFRP, Challenges in Evaluating Comprehensive School-Linked Service Initiatives.
Making the Case for Family–School–Community Partnerships: Linking Partnerships with Student Achievement
Steve Sheldon, Research Scientist with the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University and Director of Research with the National Network of Partnership Schools, addresses the need for a stronger evidence base to support the role of school–family–community partnerships in education reform.
Conjoint Behavioral Consultation: A Model to Facilitate Meaningful Partnerships for Families and Schools
Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln studied the effectiveness of a behavioral intervention model where parents, educators, and service providers work collaboratively to address children's developmental needs in a Head Start program.
Free. Available online only.
The Welfare-to-Work Transition and Parent Involvement in Education: A Southern Case Study
This exploratory case study examines whether the transition from welfare to work influences parental involvement in elementary school education.
Free. Available online only.
Social Contexts of Education
This class has an experimental design. It has been planned in collaboration with the leaders from the Boston Public Schools (BPS) in general and Brighton High School faculty and Garfield Elementary School faculty in particular. In this class we will endeavor not only to understand specific social contexts of education, but also to play a proactive role in improving communication between two schools and the communities they serve.
Free. Available online only.
Evaluating Early Childhood Services: What's Really Behind the Curtain
Jack Shonkoff, dean of the Heller School at Brandeis University, describes the highly politicized environment of program evaluation and its attendant challenges.
Participatory Evaluators' Roundtable, 1995
Jennifer Schumaker of Heifer Project International reviews the outcomes of a roundtable on participatory evaluation attended by 19 professionals that took place April 1995.
Teacher, Family & Community: Relationships and Resources
Examination of how the relationship between schools, families, and communities impacts the school adjustment of children during middle childhood and early adolescence as well as the roles of school personnel, parents, and community agents. Models and methods for facilitating positive relationships are considered. Resources for the education of children within families and communities are investigated.
Free. Available online only.
Does Youth Participation in Out-of-School Time Activities Make a Difference?
Sandra Simpkins of HFRP integrates findings from academic research and program evaluation to provide a comprehensive look at the relationship between participation in out-of-school time (OST) activities and positive youth outcomes, and points to new directions for OST research and evaluation.
How Does Parenting Matter in Adolescence? Insights From Variable- and Person-Centered Approaches
This paper examines relations between a variety of parenting behaviors and indicators of adolescent adjustment. Variable-centered analyses suggest that parents establish rules in the face of poor adolescent adjustment. Parenting behaviors focused on cognitive stimulation in the home and through school involvement were associated with positive adolescent adjustment. Person-centered analyses identified five distinct clusters based on the pattern of parenting behaviors and confirmed results found in the variable-centered analyses.
Society for the Study of Human Development Annual Meeting
This presentation, Supporting Children's Development in and out of the Classroom, examined parenting behaviors and their associations with one another and with children's outcomes in early and late adolescence.
Free. Available online only.
Pizza, Transportation, and Transformation: Youth Involvement in Evaluation and Research
Jennifer Smith from HFRP writes about involving youth in evaluation and research.
A New Approach to Transitions: Welcoming Families and Their Ideas into Kindergarten Classrooms
Ken Smythe-Leistico is the director of Ready Freddy: Pathways to Kindergarten Success at the University of Pittsburgh’s Office of Child Development. In this profile, Ken discusses the Ready Freddy program—created in collaboration with Pittsburgh Public Schools, families, and community partners to increase the likelihood that children will have a successful kindergarten year.
The Three- Step Assessment Tango: Nurturing and Measuring Learning in Online Professional Development
David Eddy Spicer, Roland Stark, and Martha Stone Wiske from WIDE World describe their process of measuring learning in online professional development.
The Three- Step Assessment Tango: Nurturing and Measuring Learning in Online Professional Development: Expanded Web Only Version
This web only version of the Promising Practices section features an expanded article by David Eddy Spicer, Roland Stark, and Martha Stone Wiske from WIDE World, describing their process of measuring learning in online professional development.
Successful Family Engagement in the Classroom: What teachers need to know and be able to do to engage families in raising student achievement
HFRP invited the Flamboyan Foundation—a private foundation focused on improving educational outcomes for children in Washington, DC and Puerto Rico—to share its classroom family engagement rubric with FINE. This rubric, and accompanying article, provides districts, school leaders, and teachers with a clear picture of what effective family engagement looks like in the classroom through concrete descriptions of how teachers demonstrate strong family engagement through their conversations and daily practice.
Complementary Learning Connections With Out-of-School Time Programs in Nebraska
When families, schools, and out-of-school supports work together, children are more likely to succeed. Lisa St. Clair writes about how the Nebraska State Parental Information and Resource Center is using a complementary learning approach to link family support programs with schools, early childhood programs, and out-of-school time programs.