What Family Involvement Is
It is important that you:
- develop a good relationship and partner with parents
- communicate regularly
- help parents understand how the daily schedule, environment, and play experiences facilitate their child’s development
- plan at least one annual activity involving parent or family participation
Partner with Families
An important aspect of a strong family partnership is helping families understand and embrace their role with their child and their child’s program through family involvement.
They will understand and embrace this role when appropriate leadership is consistently modeled by the director and the staff.
It is important that YOU:
- Partner with parents
- Develop positive relationships
- Communicate regularly
- Help parents understand how the daily schedule, environment, and play experiences facilitate their child’s development
- Plan at least one annual activity involving parent or family participation
Tips for partnering with families include:
- Greet the parents by name and make them feel welcome.
- Maintain two-way communication by:
- Asking parents to share information about their child’s likes, dislikes, and the child’s experiences.
- Telling parents about the child’s day.
- Asking for parents’ advice about their children and their child rearing practices and respecting their concerns and ideas.
- Providing information in parents’ home language.
- Sharing information with parents about what you do in the program so that they are better able to support and extend this learning at home.
- Maintain confidentiality. Do not share information about the family or the child with other people unless there is a specific need to do so (e.g., a child is being abused or neglected and you need to make a report).
- Ask parents to share information about their culture.
What the regulations say about involving parents or families
Type I centers and Type II licensed homes (922 KAR 2:110 Sec 1 and Sec 4)
- Coordinate at least one (1) annual activity involving parental or family participation. [Sec 4(p)]
- “Parental or family participation” means a child-care center’s provision of information or inclusion of a child’s parent in the child-care center’s activities, such as:
- Distribution of a newsletter;
- Distribution of a program calendar;
- A conference between the provider and a parent; or
- Other activity designed to engage a parent in the program’s activities. [Sec 1(10)]
Certified family child care homes (922 KAR 2:100)
The certified family child-care home provider shall
- Coordinate at least one (1) annual activity involving parental or family participation. [Sec 17 (8)]
- “Parental or family participation” means a family child-care home’s provision of information or inclusion of a child’s parent in the child-care home’s activities such as:
- Distribution of a newsletter;
- Distribution of a program calendar;
- A conference between the provider and the parent; or
- Other activity designed to engage a parent in the program’s activities. [Sec 1(12)]
