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.
Storytelling and Statistics: A Synergistic Combination
Deborah Johnson illustrates how storytelling can help uncover powerful impacts with two case studies from the Boys and Girls Club.
Strategic Communications
The Winter 2001 issue focuses on the increasing importance of strategic communications in nonprofits, examining how to best create, produce, and evaluate communications strategies. The issue features communications campaigns and their evaluations, a conversation with a top communications professional, and information and resources for designing and evaluating strategic communications initiatives.
Strategic Planning Process: Steps in Developing Strategic Plans
This brief provides an overview of the strategic planning process, an essential first step in the development of a results-based accountability system.
Free. Available online only.
Strategies for Assessing Policy Change Efforts: A Prospective Approach
Justin Louie and Kendall Guthrie of Blueprint Research and Design outline the steps for advocacy and policy change evaluators to follow in using a prospective approach to evaluation.
Strategy Guide: Collecting and Using Information to Strengthen Citywide Out-of-School Time Systems
Cities around the country are building systems that seek to make the most of public and private resources to provide widespread, high-quality, out-of-school time (OST) opportunities. Participation in OST programs not only benefits young people, but also the cities in which they live—with the potential to help reduce crime and create a more skilled workforce. This guide by the National League of Cities and HFRP provides municipal leaders and their key partners with strategies for collecting and using information to strengthen citywide OST systems.
Strengthen What Happens Outside School to Improve What Happens Inside
This article by Harvard Family Research Project in the April 2009 issue of Phi Delta Kappan offers research-based recommendations for federal education legislation.
Free. Available online only.
Strengthening Family Engagement Through Teacher Preparation and Professional Development
In this Commentary, HFRP’s M. Elena Lopez and Christine Patton discuss the importance of teacher preparation in family engagement, and highlight the ways in which we at HFRP are working to advance educator training and professional development in this field.
Strengthening Family Ties
Sharon Hemphill and Holly Kreider describe how the Boys & Girls Clubs of America is implementing and evaluating an initiative that goes “beyond the walls” to support families in order to promote children’s success.
Strengthening Local Evaluation Capacity in Rural Communities
Using a participatory/empowerment evaluation approach with Save the Children, Linda Morrell and Kenneth Terao from the Aguirre Group offer reflections and lessons learned from their experience.
Strengthening Out-Of-School Time Nonprofits: The Role of Foundations in Building Organizational Capacity
Commissioned by the Wallace Foundation as part of a three-part series, this paper looks at the role that foundations can play in building out-of-school time (OST) nonprofits' organizational capacity. In it, we suggest seven possible approaches to strengthening OST organizations, including methods to ensure that providers become stronger partners with other groups and more adept advocates for their field.
Strengthening Programs and Summative Evaluations Through Formative Evaluations
Two evaluators from SRI describe the benefits realized by the Parent Institute for Quality Education when they prefaced their summative evaluation with a formative evaluation.
Studying Contextual Predictors of Participation in Out-of-School Time Activities
Describing a new study by HFRP, Holly Kreider illustrates how research and data can illuminate and facilitate links between complementary learning contexts.
Studying Learning Initiatives: The Experience of the Empowerment Zones/Enterprise Communities National Learning Initiative
Andy Mott of Center for Community Change and Vicki Creed of Learning Partners discuss an approach they used to evaluate learning through the National Learning Initiative of the Empowerment Zones/Enterprise Communities Project.
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.
Summer Success: Challenges and Strategies in Creating Quality Academically Focused Summer Programs
This brief looks at evaluations of 34 academically focused summer programs in order to distill challenges and compile promising strategies for creating quality summer programs.
Free. Available online only.
Supplementary Education: The Hidden Curriculum of High Academic Achievement
Priscilla Little of HFRP reviews Supplementary Education, a new compilation of essays and papers edited by Edmund Gordon, Beatrice Bridglall, and Aundra Saa Meroe.
Supporting Effective After School Programs: The Contribution of Developmental Research
Jacquelynne Eccles, Professor at the University of Michigan, shares her thoughts about the contribution of developmental research to the after school conversation and the need for an infrastructure to support this.
Supporting Family Engagement Through District-Level Partnerships
Mavis Sanders from Johns Hopkins University looks at how school districts can promote family–school partnerships by collaborating with community based organizations.
Supporting Governors' Early Childhood Policy Decisions: The Role of Research
Anna Lovejoy, from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, describes how the organization keeps governors informed about emerging issues in early childhood.
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.
Supporting Ongoing, Constructive, and Meaningful Conversations About Student’s Progress
Plan for your upcoming parent-teacher conferences and beyond! Use our list of five of our favorite resources to support ongoing conversations about each student’s progress.
Supporting Parents of Learning Disabled Children: Creating a New Norm
The purpose of this module is to explore an understanding of how parents of learning disabled (LD) children make sense of their parenting experiences and the ways in which they might be better supported within school communities. Students will also become familiar with the principles of dialogue, a form of communication that values the multiple truths that parents and educators bring to discussions about a child's learning.
Free. Available online only.
Supporting Relationships and Family Engagement in the Transition to Kindergarten
Presenting the Bridging Worlds case with a Fishbowl activity helped educators came to understand the need to support relationships between families and schools during the transition period.
Supporting Student Outcomes Through Expanded Learning Opportunities
This paper looks at the role of after school and summer learning programs in supporting student success. The paper explores how to bridge the divide between out-of-school time programs and schools by offering research-derived principles for effective expanded learning partnerships. It was commissioned by Learning Point Associates and the Collaborative for Building After-School Systems (CBASS) as part of a report on school reform and expanded learning.
Free. Available online only.