The document discusses the importance of building collaborative partnerships between educators and families. It believes that partnerships allow educators to gain insight into each child's experiences, culture, and interests to provide a responsive education. When educators and families exchange information and work as genuine partners, it enhances the child's learning by promoting mutual understanding and shared decision making.

1. • The setting I come from I feel that parent
involvement is shallow and unrewarding.
When parents pick and drop children
educators miss to initiate interactions and
build on relationships and are unable to
recognise families as genuine partners. The
partnerships help to transform relationships as
they challenge knowledge and power links
between educators and families as suggested
by Stonehouse and Gonzalez Mena, 2008,
“While family involvement is not a partnership,
it can lead to a partnership”.
Issue/Concern

2. How we can build
Collaborative
partnerships with
Families

3. My beliefs and why we value collaborative
partnership with families
• I believe family is key influence in child’s learning.
By building strong relationships with the families,
we educators are able to find out about the child’s
everyday experiences and interests, which further
allow us to provide a culturally responsive and
relevant program to the children.
• According to sociocultural theories children learn
through interactions within their families and
communities. Hughes and Naughton suggested that
“effective partnerships between families and
educators give family members a voice and a role in
decision making and encourage the negotiation of
shared meanings”.

4. My beliefs and why we value collaborative
partnership with families (Contd.)
• When educators work in partnerships with the families, it enables us to
appreciate each others role and promote the sharing of information
which further enhances the child’s learning. As suggested by Puckett and
diffily,2004, “collaborative partnerships involve both educators and
family members making a commitment and sharing information and are
built on mutual benefit”.(Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett, Farmer, 2012,
p.50)
• When we educators exchange information with families, we are able to
identify children’s connections with community groups and it also
provides insight into their interest and funds of knowledge. Based on
these exchange of information with the families and using
Bronfenbrenner model , we can identify importance of relationships and
the strengths that a child brings to the setting.

5. “5 Why’s” Activity: Why we lack collaborative
partnerships with families?
• Lack of partnership- Why?
• Lack of shared decision making- Why?
• Lack of meaningful interactions- Why?
• Lack of time – Why?
• Lack of flexible ways to communicate-
Why?
Lack of effective communication : Root
Cause

6. “2-1-2” activity:
Strengths are :1. Willingness to improve
2. Making initiatives
Opportunity for growth :
Effective communication.
Strategies: 1. Making an action Plan to have an
effective communication.
2. Critical Reflection & Evaluation.

7. Action Plan
1.Interview between Family and Educator
• Accept perspectives
• Understand/Preferable ways of communication
• Common Goal
2. Follow the information through being caring, consistent and with the
clarity.

8. Action Plan (Contd.)
3. Orientation visits to be arranged as “careful orientation of a
family to the service and the service to family enables trust to
grow and dialogue to begin.”(Arthur et al. p.58)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHk3m9QS9Zc

9. Action Plan (Contd.)
4. Ongoing exchange of information enables us to “recognise the power
relationships that exist between educators and many families and take steps
to develop relationships with the families who are different from us.”(Blaise
& Nuttall, cited in, Arthur et al., 2012, p.51)
5. Building sense of community by providing multiple ways for families to
choose to be part of the setting.
• http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/nqsplp/e-learning-videos/talking-about-practice/partnerships-with-families

10. Evaluation
• Success
• Excitement
• Nervous
• Worries