Home > Promoting Healthy Families in Your Community: 2008 Resource Packet > Chapter 1: Overview - Partnering With Parents and Caregivers

Promoting Healthy Families in Your Community : 2008 Resource Packet

Author(s):   Child Welfare Information Gateway, Children's Bureau, FRIENDS National Resource Center For Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention

Year Published:  2008

Email Print (PDF 2907 KB)  Share

Rate This    5.0/5, 4 Reviews

You are in section:

Chapter 1: Overview
Partnering With Parents and Caregivers

All parents and caregivers share a deep concern and love for their children.¹ Their desire to do the best they can for their families provides a foundation for working with them to explore strategies for caring effectively for their children. Approaching parents as the experts on their own children, listening openly to their concerns and perspectives, and seeking solutions with them (rather than providing for them) help foster a trusting relationship.

When we work with parents in a spirit of true partnership, mothers, fathers, and other caregivers are more likely to invite and welcome providers' support in evaluating needs, developing goals, and identifying effective ways to strengthen the family and provide care for children.

(Back to Top)

Benefits of Partnership

Partnering with parents and caregivers:

• Focuses attention on the overall well-being of the child and family, rather than on specific "symptoms" in isolation
• Results in more competent and relevant supports, as providers gain a greater understanding of families' perspectives, homes, and environments
• Fosters parent leadership skills, resulting in more confident parenting and an enhanced ability of mothers, fathers and other caregivers to advocate for their families' needs
• Promotes lasting change, as parents build on existing skills and enhance natural support networks that will extend beyond the time frame of a provider's involvement

(Back to Top)

The Meaning of Partnership

Working in partnership with parents and caregivers means:

• Understanding that all parents have strengths, and helping families build on their strengths and recognize their personal power to ensure family success
• Viewing parents as the experts on their own children, supporting them with resources and sharing responsibility for outcomes
• Listening carefully to parents' concerns and helping them identify solutions that will work for their family
• Including parents in the development, implementation, and evaluation of processes and programs that are driven by parents' needs and incorporate their ideas and suggestions
• Helping parents take responsibility and learn to advocate more effectively for themselves and their children
• Working to understand parents' language and culture, and adjusting communication to reflect differences

(Back to Top)

Building Successful Partnerships

Successful partnership includes being respectful and responsive to parents' concerns about work schedules, family responsibilities, and past experiences. Parents need to be empowered to identify solutions that make sense within their cultural and family context and that fit with their individual parenting style. The following is a list of questions to ask yourself to help ensure you are doing everything possible to structure your program or service in a way that welcomes moms, dads, and other caregivers, invites their trust, and helps them to feel comfortable:

• Are parents' opinions solicited and considered? Are parents invited to "translate" the five protective factors in ways that make sense for their lives and cultures?
• Are parents encouraged to identify strengths in themselves, in their children, and in their family and community? Do these shape the focus of discussion?
• Are meeting times flexible, depending on the family's availability?
• Are meetings held in locations that are convenient for parents? Are transportation and childcare offered?
• Are parents given the opportunity to identify new roles or ways of approaching things?
• Do staff members speak the parents' language fluently?
• Are materials provided in the parents' native language and tested with parent groups?
• Are materials and messages provided in multiple formats to reflect various literacy levels and preferences (written, oral, graphic)?
• Are the traditions and values of the family's culture that influence child rearing recognized and respected?
• Are elements of the family's culture incorporated into the look and feel of the meeting space, curriculum or other text, and materials?
• Are parent leaders involved in all aspects of program planning, implementation, and evaluation?

Also, be sure to ask parents and caregivers how they envision a "partnership" with their service providers. Solicit feedback about their satisfaction with the service provider's ability to promote the partnership and identify family strengths.

For more on partnering with families and youth, visit the Child Welfare Information Gateway web page on Partnering With Parents:
http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/promoting/partnering.cfm

¹ Although the term "parents" is used throughout this packet for brevity, we recognize that these considerations are applicable when working with all caregivers, including grandparents and other relatives. back

(Back to Top)

You are in section:

This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit Child Welfare Information Gateway.

Email Print (PDF 2907 KB)  Share

Updated on March 1, 2010