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You are listening to Supporting Supporters, a ChangetoChill podcast. This is a free mental well-being resource offered by Allina Health. My name is Tonya Freeman. I’m a licensed psychologist and regional lead psychologist with Allina Health. 

These podcast episodes are aimed with the goal of providing quick, tangible resources and information from Allina Health mental health providers on a range of mental health topics relevant to day to day lives of the listener. We invite you to join us in any way you please, whether you sit back and kick your feet up, or as you engage in movement, your daily commute, or as you prepare for your day. However you choose to join us, we welcome you and we honor your time.

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My name is Tonya Freeman, I am an early lifespan primary care psychologist with Allina Health and I want to start by thanking you for listening to our podcast where we are hopeful to cultivate a space to give back to you - our teachers who are day in and day out serving our next generations in a time of so much uncertainty. I first want to thank you for showing up today. This podcast project is especially meaningful to me as a first generation scholar of higher education. Without teachers who supported, motivated, and cared for me, I certainly would not be where I am today and for that, I will forever be grateful. Because of those teachers, I myself have become a lifelong learner and strive to find opportunities to give back and serve in unique ways. I value your time and feel honored you have chosen to spend a few minutes with me, for you, your students, your family, and your community, as without filling your cup, it is significantly more difficult to serve others, even if serving others fills your cup. As I honor your time, I will dive right into this topic on working with the family who is ready and wanting to partner.

I have four topics in this episode: 

Topic 1: Connection

Topic 2: Why is partnering important? If the parents are supportive do they need me? 

Topic 3: What barriers are there to family involvement?

Topic 4: What might this look like? 

Feel free to pause, take notes, listen to this however you would like to, come back in chunks. That’s just an outline of what this is going to look like. So let’s dive right in. 

Topic 1: Connection  

Throughout my podcast episodes on communicating and collaborating with the family, you may hopefully start to notice a theme of connection. As hard-wired social beings, connection is a foundational principle. Brene Brown (researcher, social worker, podcast host, and author) defines connection as: “the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued. When they can give and receive without judgement, and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.” Connection is also identified as one of the most important components to effective leadership. 

I highlight this importance of connection for multiple reasons, particularly because it is foundational to collaboration, support, and fostering working relationships whether there is tension or passion, hope or hopelessness. 

Topic 2: Why is partnering important? If the parents are supportive do they really need me? 

With the power of connection in mind, teachers, schools, and families have unique opportunities and roles to play in connecting together to foster nourishing environments that promote positive development, social skills, and academic performance. When parents and teachers work together as partners, they create important opportunities for children to develop emotional, behavioral, social, and academic skills that can and will serve throughout their lifespan. While this may sound like a lot of pressure, if a family is ready to partner, it can be so small as making that initial connection with the family, developing forms for ongoing communication (e.g., sending notes home, e-mails, monthly calls, conferences etc., at an identified and agreed upon frequency) so that all parties feel involved, supported, and heard. Consider times where you have attended a meeting with a lot of ideas and passion but left either without opportunity to speak up in the meeting or left feeling as though your ideas were minimized or all together vetoed. It is a defeating feeling and while it can invigorate some to increase passion, it often exacerbates feelings of loneliness, hopelessness, worthlessness, and decreases the likelihood of continuing to show up in that particular context. We can use this information to instead promote and foster working relationships with families and educators where education is viewed as a shared responsibility between family and educators. Think of families who hear your input, put it into action, and you see visible evidence from the student that the family is doing the work at home. This is what we are aiming for. But without building these connections and having clear communication, there are often blurred lines and unmet expectations from both parties. The responsibility is then no longer shared and blame, shame, and guilt can creep in. The biggest issue here is the person most affected is the student who often then becomes identified as the messenger and communicator between parties. While we want the student involved, we want to support the student and not place them in a position of serving as the deliverer of difficult communication. 

There are numerous benefits of educator-family partnerships identified across diverse socioeconomic, linguistic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds and the goal would be to provide opportunities for families in an equitable manner. 

Topic 3: What are barriers to family involvement?

While it may be easy to view non engagement as a resistant or uninterested family system, it is important we consider potential barriers to involvement. 

Across the research, the following are identified as common barriers to family involvement: 

·       Busy work schedules that do not align with offered opportunities for involvement 

·       Difficulty with childcare needs for all children in the family system 

·       Difficulties getting ahold of staff and school 

·       Worries about how teachers may respond to the child if parents raise concerns to the school 

·       Not yet established trust with the school or staff 

·       Involvement opportunities have not been wildly presented 

·       Unclear guidance on how to best communicate with the school 

·       Feeling as an outcast within the school system 

·       Challenges with transportation 

·       Stories of distrust within the district 

With all of these potential barriers come opportunities for engagement that can potentially be addressed on both system wide levels and family specific communication. They are all important to consider as well as potential barriers you can think of within your school system. By identifying these obstacles we can develop ways to improve communication and engagement and decrease ruptures between family and school partnership which ultimately serves the best interest of the student, family, and school system as a whole. 

Topic 4: What might this look like? 

Partnering with families will likely look unique dependent on the family. There are ways though to provide general engagement options while allowing for flexibility and unique circumstances. We will keep in mind providing several options and opportunities with an equity lens. Some options include:

·       Having clear opportunities for families to get their voices heard. This could look different dependent on your preferences, classroom situation, and class size. 

o   Examples might be monthly e-mails, monthly survey links, or having an online portal where families can submit real time feedback.

·       Using plain terms and concise communication to make information feasible and clear to all. 

·       Having frequent team meetings to ensure biases and assumptions are not impacting child and family involvement. 

·       Offering flexibility and variety for parent involvement. For example:  

o   Consider options to register to volunteer online. 

o   Have before and after school involvement options for parents whose work hours don’t allow school day times (highlight these options in advance for after school activities). 

o   Offer supplemental resources in a variety of formats for parents to stay involved and support out of classroom learning. 

§  This might look like social media updates, in person or virtual workshops, or school bulletins. 

·       Offer a variety of parent teacher communication options. 

·       Consider using online tools to keep parents informed.

There are endless opportunities that can be on a small scale or large involvement to offer variety and flexibility dependent on teacher, school, and parent characteristics. The main goal is to offer clear and concise opportunities for all with a variety of options to maximize equity to involvement and facilitate connection and collaboration. 

While the opportunities for partnering with families are wide and large and we certainly did not address all feasible options, my hope is this episode facilitated brainstorming on how connecting with families can enhance your classroom and what supports if any you made need from your school. 

Thank you for all you do for our students and community at large. I cherish your work and I honor your time. See you in a future episode, Dr. Freeman. 

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On behalf of Allina Health and Change to Chill, we thank you for taking the time to listen to our podcast. We do hope you enjoyed this episode and we hope that you join us in other episodes covering even more interesting topics with mental health providers. As always, you can find the show notes and any accompanying research and tools at the change to chill website at www.changetochill.org. In health and wellness, take care and see you next time!