Parent/Caregiver/Family Involvement

Websites
A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family and Community Connections on Student Achievement -- a 2002 report by Anne Henderson and Karen Mapp, two experts on school-family-community partnerships.

Center On School, Family, and Community Partnerships -- the website of a major research and policy center on -- the Director is Joyce Epstein, one of the nation's leading experts and authors on this topic.

Comer School Development Program -- started by Yale professor of child psychiatry, Dr. James Comer, this nationally recognized program helps schools develop strong bonds with parents and community that translate into significant academic performance gains -- Dr. Comer started with one school in a poor neighborhood in New Haven, CT and has built a national model for school reform that works.

Promising Partnership Practices -- a collection of reports by the Center On School, Family, and Community Partnerships, for years 1998 through 2005, about effective practices related to building school, family, community partnerships.

Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS) -- an empowering and culturally responsive program, associated with the Center On School, Family, and Community Partnerships, -- this site includes specific lesson plan ideas for different subjects

Critical Issue: Supporting Ways Parents Can Become Involved In Schools -- good ideas from a number of experts.

Creating the School Climate and Structures to Support Parent and Family Involvement -- an essay about what schools can and should do to create an environment conducive to effective parent/family involvement.

Constructing School Partnerships with Families and Community Groups -- what schools should do to promote effective school-family-community partnerships.

Parent Involvement in After-School Programs -- an article from the U.S. Dept. of Education about how to implement an afterschool program with parental involvement and the benefits of such a program.

Parent Involvement at the Middle School Level -- an article that talks about middle schoolers and why it is especially important for parents to be involved during the middle school years.

The Harvard Family Research Project -- a project founded on the belief that "for children and youth to be successful, there must be an array of learning supports around them. These supports, which must reach beyond school, should be linked and work toward consistent learning and developmental outcomes for children from birth through adolescence. Examples of nonschool learning supports include early childhood programs, families, after school programs, libraries, and other community-based institutions."

Parents Write their Worlds: A Parent Involvement Program Bridging Urban Schools and Families -- a description of an interesting project in which parents participate in a program writing and publishing essays and stories about thier lives and experiences living in poor and immigrant communities in Chicago, Illinois -- the program improves parent writing skills and their participation in the educational and school lives of their children.

The Family-School Partnerships Project -- part of the Harvard Family Research Project's work to improve school-famiily-community connections.

Creating Effective Teacher-Parent Collaborations -- a site presenting tips for building positive relations with parents as well as links to other good parent-teacher sites.

Books and Articles
Bemak, F. & Cornely, L. 2002. The SAFI Model As a Critical Link Between Marginalized Families and Schools. Journal of Counseling and Development, 80(3): 322.

Chavkin, N. (Ed.) 1993. Families and Schools in a Pluralistic Society. SUNY Press.

Comer, J., Haynes, N., Joyner, & Ben-Avie, M. 1996. (Eds.) Rallying the Whole Village: The Comer Process for Reforming Education. Teachers College Press.

Delgado-Gaitan, C. 2001. The Power of Community: Mobilizing for Family and Schooling. Rowman & Littlefield.

Dryfoos, J. 1994. Full-Service Schools: A Revolution in Health and Social Services for Children, Youth, and Families. Jossey-Bass.

Epstein, J. 2001. School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools. Westview Press.

Kellaghan, T., Sloane, K., Alvarez, B. & Bloom, B. 1993. The Home Environment and School Learning: Promoting Parental Involvement in the Education of Children. Jossey-Bass.

Lightfoot, S. 1978. Worlds Apart: Relationships Between Families and Schools. Basic Books.

Lott, B. 2001. Low-Income Parents and the Public Schools. Journal of Social Issues, 57(2).

McCaleb, S. 1994. Building Communities of Learners: A Collaboration among Teachers, Students, Families and Community. St. Martin's Press.

Murrell, P. 2001. The Community Teacher: A New Framework for Effective Urban Teaching. Teachers College Press.

Olivios, E. 2004. Tensions, Contradictions, and Resistance: An Activist's Reflection of the Struggles of Latino Parents in the Public School System. High School Journal, 87(4): 25.

Pattnaik, J. 2003. Multicultural Literacy Starts at Home: Supporting Parental Involvement in Multicultural Education. Childhood Education, 80(1): 18.

Steven, B. & Tollafield, A. 2003. Classroom Practice: Creating Comfortable and Productive Parent-Teacher Conferences. Phi Delta Kappan, 84(7): 521.

Trumbell, E ., Rothstein-Fisch, C ., Greenfield, P . & Quiroz, B .(2001. Bridging Cultures between Home and School: A Guide for Teachers. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, Publishers.

Swap, S. 1993. Developing Home-School Partnerships: From Concepts to Practice. Teachers College Press.

Zionts, L., Zionts, P., Harrison, S., & Bellinger, O. 2003. Urban African American Families' Perceptions of Cultural Sensitivity within the Special Education System. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 18(1): 4.