Encouraging Family and Community Involvement

If you are employed in a state that uses a registry to track professional development hours, you will be able to provide your registry ID (Stars, MOPID, Registry or other ECE ID#) after you have completed the quiz for the course. If you pass the quiz we will report your course completion to the state registry using the registry ID that you provide.

Connecting with family members of the children you serve is necessary in order to truly know and understand your children. It is also a necessary step to making the family comfortable with their choice to leave their children with you. Your relationship with the families you serve is a vital part of being successful as a caregiver and educator. This course will help you discover ways to succeed in these areas. We will also explore how to make connections to helpful organizations within the community and how these can serve the center as well as the families of the children. The final section explores how we, as early childhood professionals can support and encourage each other in our profession. Course length – 2.0 hours.

The course answers the following questions:

• Why is it important to encourage the children’s family members?

• What are some ways I can help encourage the children’s family members?

• How can family members help in the classroom?

• Why is it important to connect with resources in the community?

• How can I help families through my connections in the community?

• Why is it important to encourage and support my co-workers?

• What are some great ways to give support and encouragement to my co-workers?

Participants who successfully complete this course will be able to:

• Analyze various methods of getting families involved with their group.

• Understand the importance of involving the community and all it has to offer in the lives of the families.

• Utilize the many ideas provided to encourage each other in their positions and build each other up.

Completing this course counts towards the Kentucky All Stars Standard of Quality: “Program/Site administrator and 75% of staff complete professional learning activities related to strengthening family engagement.” The course also contains many ideas towards fulfilling other standards of quality in the family and community engagement section.