The third issue in our Educare Insights series, this brief focuses on program practice – specifically a quality improvement effort called Targeted Supports – and its implementation within the Educare Network. The purpose of Targeted Supports is to help school leaders and staff develop, apply and strengthen their family engagement practices.
Lessons learned on Targeted Supports:
- Add to the growing evidence base demonstrating the components and benefits of a targeted approach to improving the intensity and quality of family engagement efforts in early childhood programs
- Reveal that a program-wide definition, shared goal setting and action planning that support consistency in intention and focus of practices among ECE leaders and staff can be effective strategies to improve family engagement efforts, especially related to fostering a warm and inclusive program environment
- Show that creating and engaging in opportunities for focused consultation and peer-to-peer connections among ECE leaders and staff help to elevate family engagement efforts, and serve as opportunities to intentionally reimagine and implement family engagement practices
This brief describes Targeted Supports and summarizes initial evaluation findings of its pilot implementation. Together with other research on efforts to deepen family engagement in early childhood, this brief offers valuable insights into best practices and policies focused on intensive family engagement.
Early childhood leaders, practitioners, advocates, policymakers and funders should prioritize and strive to expand quality improvement efforts and professional development on intensive family engagement.
Read the full brief on Intensive Family Engagement..
Intensive Family Engagement
