Developing Professional Skills to Promote Family Engagement: The Getting Ready Approach
About this session
Professionals who work with families have unique opportunities to build partnerships that will contribute to children’s healthy development. Professionals must work intentionally and strategically to build partnerships, but are often uncertain how to do this. Getting Ready is an approach that provides specific guidance for promoting family partnerships. Getting Ready was developed in Nebraska and has strong evidence of effectiveness. This session will introduce four Getting Ready family engagement strategies that professionals can intentionally integrate into family interactions to enhance partnerships. Participants will gain skills to enhance their work with families.
Intended Audience: This session will inform professionals who work with families in some capacity. This includes front-line staff (e.g. home visitors, teachers, child care providers) as well as program leaders who work with families indirectly.
Learning objectives
Participants will:
- Identify the difference between parent involvement and parent partnership.
- Increase knowledge of four strategies that can be used by professionals to promote family engagement.
- Develop an action plan that includes practices for supporting family engagement.