Theme 4: Family, School, & Community

Investigates effective strategies for integrating parent and family engagement into all systems and program services to support family well-being, promote children's learning and development, and respond to families' cultural and ethnic differences in the preschool setting. Presentations in this theme should provide ideas for establishing innovative two-generation approaches that address prevalent needs of families across their program that may leverage community partnerships or other funding sources. These innovative approaches should include fostering social relationships among peers and promoting multicultural understanding and considerations for parent engagement and communication with diverse populations. A significant component of this theme is conducting a community assessment and identifying areas of need that include a detailed analysis of homeless and underserved populations. This theme also includes organizational leadership concepts (i.e., fiscal management in early learning, governance, recordkeeping, and ongoing monitoring) that assist with program service delivery of all performance standards and ongoing quality improvement and delivering high-quality services.

• Relationship-based competencies for home visitors
• Relationship-based skills to support family engagement
• Fatherhood engagement and/or Parent curriculum
• Parent Engagement - responsive cultural pedagogy
• Recruitment practices to support program culture
• Family support for transition from Head Start to public schools
• Partnership models with the local school districts
• Establishing and achieving program goals
• Implementing program performance standards
• Strategic planning

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