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The Importance of Family Engagement in Infant and
Toddler Programs
Family engagement strategies in child care and early
education include families as partners and support families
in parenting their children to help them reach their full
potential. Research shows the value of building strong
relationships among the adults in a young child's life and
the positive impact those relationships can have on the
family as a whole.
Strong family engagement practices are particularly important
for families who face multiple challenges, like poverty and
language barriers. For example, more than three-quarters of
Head Start families receive at least one family engagement
service from the program; the most commonly accessed
are parenting education (52 percent), health education
(48 percent), and emergency or crisis intervention (21 percent).
Despite its importance, knowing how to effectively engage
parents from a variety of cultural and socio-economic
backgrounds in child care and early education has historically
been a challenge for the field. However, effective models like the Strengthening Families and Head Start Parent, Family, and Community Engagement frameworks have offered approaches
that can help policy makers and practitioners improve
family engagement practices.
To shine light on what research tells us about the importance
of family engagement in child care and early education programs
serving infants and toddlers, CLASP has released a new resource. Promote Family Engagement is part of CLASP's
"Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care" project, an ongoing
effort by CLASP to link research to policy ideas to help states
make the best decisions for infants and toddlers in child care.
This latest resource provides research documenting the
importance of strengthening family engagement, policy recommendations states can consider to improve their family
engagement strategies for infants and toddlers, and additional
online resources.
Using information provided in Promote Family Engagement,
States can put policies in place that support and strengthen
families with infants and toddlers and increase child care and
early education providers' ability to serve those children well.
By incorporating expectations around family engagement
practices into quality, subsidy and licensing policies, states
can build on the success of existing models and practices,
creating both the incentive and the supports that programs
require to meet the needs of vulnerable families.
To find out more about the importance of family engagement in
programs serving infants and toddlers as well as the policy options available to states, visit Promote Family Engagement.
This article was reprinted with the permission of the author, Christine Johnson-Staub and CLASP.
CLASP develops and advocates for policies at the federal, state, and local levels that improve the lives of low-income people, with a focus on strengthening families and creating pathways to education and work. Through careful research and analysis and effective advocacy, we foster and promote new ideas, mobilize others, and help advocates and government implement strategies that deliver results for people across America. For more information, visit www.clasp.org and follow @CLASP_DC.
