This document discusses partnerships between teachers and families of children with disabilities. It emphasizes the importance of cultural competence when working with families and the need to understand different family structures and experiences. The challenges families face in adjusting to their child's disability are also examined. Effective parent-teacher partnerships require open communication, establishing trust, providing parent support and involvement in the child's education, with the shared goals of supporting the child and empowering families.

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Chapter 9
Partnership with Families

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Family Patterns and Expectations
• What is a family?
– The answer is constantly changing.
– Families are individuals who care about one
another and often have a bond.
– It may be a group of individuals related by
blood; but they may also not be, just live
together.
– Family is also a cultural group that you are
attached to.

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Family Patterns and Expectations
(continued)
• Cultural competence
– In working with families, a teacher needs to
become culturally competent:
• Learn about the families you serve.
• Work with cultural mediators.
• Learn words from their language.
• Take time to work with interpreters.
• Use forms of communication acceptable to the
family.
• Recognize collaboration.

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Family Patterns and Expectations
(continued)
• Families of children with disabilities
– Research has been done on mothers’
reactions, often wanting the best for their
child.
– Little research has been done on fathers, who
see the big picture and think about money.
– Attention needs to be paid to grandparents
and siblings as well.

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Family Patterns and Expectations
(continued)
• Family adjustment
– Grief is typically the first emotion.
– The family grieves for the loss of the normal,
healthy child they were planning for.
– Decisions need to be made, causing stress.
– Families need to work together for the benefit
of the child and the family stability.

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Family Patterns and Expectations
(continued)
• Enabling and empowering families
– Enabling is creating opportunities for family
members to become more competent and
self-sustaining with respect to their abilities to
mobilize their social networks to get needs
met and attain goals.

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Family Patterns and Expectations
(continued)
– Empowering is carrying out interventions in a
manner in which family members acquire a
sense of control over their own developmental
course as a result of their own efforts to meet
needs.

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The Parent-Teacher Partnership
• Parent involvement
– Provides an ongoing support system that
supports the program
– Maintains and elaborates the child’s gains
after the program ends

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The Parent-Teacher Partnership
(continued)
• Rationale for parent participation
– Parents are the first teacher.
– Skills are learned faster when practice is done
at home.
– Early intervention provides support for
parents.
– Consistency of expectations is maintained.
– Parents know their child best.

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The Parent-Teacher Partnership
(continued)
• Degree of participation
– Parents cannot always do as much as they
would like or caregivers would like due to
• Work schedules
• Other children
• Attitude toward child and child’s problems
• Culture
• Parental education and health

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The Parent-Teacher Partnership
(continued)
• Establishing trust
– Teachers need to work hard to develop trust
with the parent.
– This can be done by talking to the parent
honestly.
– Share concerns in a caring manner.
– Protect a child’s confidentiality.

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The Parent-Teacher Partnership
(continued)
• Communicating with parents
– Informal exchanges
– Parent observations
– Telephone calls
– Written notes
– Email
– Two way journal
– Audio- and videotapes
– Newsletters
– Class websites

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The Parent-Teacher Partnership
(continued)
• Parent-teacher meetings
– Large group meetings
• Parents are called together to share information
that affects the group at large
– Changes in curriculum
– Scheduling
– Staffing
– Child development

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The Parent-Teacher Partnership
(continued)
– Parent conferences
• More one-on-one with the child’s parents.
• It is a give-and-take meeting.
• Parents have a time to share concerns.
• Teachers share progress and address
weaknesses.
• Parents are allowed time to question.

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The Parent-Teacher Partnership
(continued)
• Parent support groups
– These groups offer support to families in the
areas of information, social gatherings, and
advocacy.
– Teachers should be familiar with the groups in
their area to share information with the
parents.

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The Parent-Teacher Partnership
(continued)
• Parent feedback
– Indirect feedback
• Said in passing by a parent or said to another
parent in hearing of the teacher.
– Direct feedback
• Questionnaires and suggestion boxes are ways to
solicit feedback from parents who won’t share
vocally.

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The Parent-Teacher Partnership
(continued)
• Home visits
– This is an essential part of the family
partnership.
– Teachers can help parents with skills at home
once they see what the parent has to offer.
– Teachers also break the ice with the child and
can help with transitioning the child.
– Teachers show respect to the parent as
teacher through a home visit.