Different family and community partnerships common in early childhood education

Many children enter an early childhood education setting as their first experience with school, outside of the home environment. It is important that early childhood education professionals understand that each child is unique and comes into our centers/programs from diverse backgrounds. As we learned last week, when early childhood education professionals understand the diverse needs of the families present in their educational settings, they can provide greater support for the children in their care.

This week’s discussion will allow you to examine several different family and community partnerships common in early childhood education. You will use your knowledge and experience to discuss which partnerships you will work on to facilitate in your future role. To prepare for this week’s discussion, please review the required readings for the week. Also, you should focus specifically on Epstein’s research of types of parent involvement models beginning on page 86.

For this discussion, choose three of the six types of family involvement discussed and complete following table:

Type of Parent Partnership

Most important characteristic of this type of partnership

Ways you will support this partnership in your desired future role including a connection to the community

Barriers you may encounter in developing this partnership in your desired future role

Plan of action to overcome barriers you may encounter in developing this partnership in your desired future role

Guided Response: Review several of your colleagues’ posts and respond to at least two by Day 7. Suggest one way they could support community partnerships further with the ideas they presented in their post. Provide them with at least one specific idea of how they can engage the community in this part