One of the key components to the successes of students in special education is parent engagement. For many students with behavioral challenges, parent engagement is critical to obtaining information necessary to interact with their child and it can also ensure we are providing the supports necessary to service the whole child. As we analyze society today, the demands placed on parents can be overwhelming, which can limit their interactions with the school for the sole reason being that they are just trying to survive. For many of our other special needs parents, school communication reminds them of bad memories or experiences that have left them frustrated and overlooked as a partner in their child's special education team. So how can we further parent communication and engagement and restore the relationship necessary to build a healthy, cohesive case conference team that involves the caregivers as a critical partner?
For many of our parents and caregivers, there are a diverse set of barriers that can keep parents from successfully engaging their child's academic and behavioral education. Here are some:
-cultural/language differences
-lack of understanding for their role as a parent
-previous negative experiences
-lack of time
-unaware of how to support you as an educator
With many of these barriers present, how can we help overcome them? We will be tackling different areas of parent engagement and creating tips and tricks to how to get them involved in that area.
Engaging Parents as Part of the Team
For many parents, in order to be engaged in their child's IEP they have to feel knowledgable and understand what their role in their child's educational journey is and how they can best support all involved. Here are some ways you can have your student's parents feel more knowledgable and willing to want to actively participate in the process.
-Partner in the Process: Are you involving this parent to the point they feel considered to be a partner on the team? Are you respecting their say and input as a person on the case conference team? Creating a team environment where all members feel an active, important input in the process creates the feeling and idea that they are valued and heard in their child's education. Just as when we create behavior plans WITH students as opposed to for them, we need to do the same with our case conference team. We need to have meetings WITH them not for them. Think, did you invite them to the meeting to listen to you or to engage and be an active participant in the meeting?
-Knowledge: What knowledge or information does this parent need or we need to provide for them so they can contribute in a way that is meaningful to the IEP? Are we explaining things to parents in a way that an outsider not involved in the special education field would understand? I think for many of us special educators (especially those who have been in the field for an extended amount of time) fall into the habit of being very knowledgable about the acronyms in special education, IEP lingo and overall field experience. However, when we obtain new students and encounter those parents, they may not be as knowledgable or had positive experiences in the past. What resources and self-help information can we give them to build their knowledge? The more knowledgable our families are, the more engaged they can be and create a meaningful impact.
I love this checklist from www.pacer.org : https://www.pacer.org/parent/php/PHP-c183.pdf
-Resources for Home: One way parents can feel a more intricate part of their child's educational process is getting them involved at home! How can they support their child's academic goals or behavioral well-being in a way that creates a solid foundational support among home and school? If time is of a restraint for parents, how can we get them involved in a way that requires minimal time? Or how can we provide resources to better support them at home? In the past, I have created 'IEP binders' for kids to send home, sent home accommodated work or used a weekly newsletter to share social and academic skills students are working on. This transfer of resources from school to home can help transfer and generalize the skills for our students in other settings. Even just the knowledge of information being shared can be helpful and ensure parents feel they have an input and are supporting their child's education.
-Positive over Negative: It's really easy for us to focus and communicate the negatives to our parents. Its much easier to pick out things our students need to work or improve on rather than recognizing the things our students are doing well. We do this with ourselves as adults, so it's really natural we do it to others. To establish effective and positive communication, we really just need to be more..well, positive. Everyday when I email my parents I frame my emails in a 'positive sandwich' way. I state a positive behavior the student exhibited for the day, then communicate any troubles or things they need to work on and then finish up by communicating another positive they engaged in. Even if parents aren't responding to the emails, they may still be reading them. This is a great way to show parents the impact we are having on their child by outlining the positives in their education.
-Surveys and Questionnaires: For many special educators, the annual meeting causes us a lot of anxiety preparing to formulate an individualized education plan for someone's child. We want to portray the child in a positive way and highlight all of the growth they have achieved over the past year, while mapping out their future plan to continue to progress. One way to ensure parents have a say in this meeting that requires little time commitment is to send out questionnaires or surveys ahead of time. These can be a paper survey parents fill out or a google form of some sort where parents can easily communicate to you their goals for their child this year. Here is the parent survey I send home to my parents before each annual case review. I utilize their responses to formulate goals, present levels and behavior plans for their child:
Communication
For all of my students, behavior is a huge part of what impedes their success in academic, social context and the overall school environment. Communication of their behavior is key and critical to overall parent involvement. Here are suggestions to ensure the best system for all involved:
-Connect: At the beginning of every school year, regardless of how many years I've had the student, I connect with the parents or caregiver and ask them what is the best means to communicate daily/weekly communication to them? Just as our preferences change over the year, so do our parents. Did their email, address or phone number change? Are they now working nights and can only be contacted during certain hours of the day? This is a great time to gain new insight into how to best get in contact with parents that works for the both of you. Remember, during this time is a great way to establish your boundaries as a teacher. For example: I do not text parents or give out my personal cell number. I strictly use email or phone calls from my work phone. Regardless the method, finding out what works best for you both should happen!
-Daily Email: For my students who require more supportive and intense services, daily communication is key for parents. Their behaviors can change daily, so we have to communicate that to parents. For my classroom, I scan a copy of their daily behavior chart to my email and forward it onto parents with a few notes as to how their day went. Most of the behavior chart has everything the parent may need to know to gauge if their child had a good or rougher day. This communication can help facilitate transfer of skills from school to home by showing parents things they may be struggling with. Often, many of my parents engage in simple conversations debriefing their child's day and can communicate that information back to me. Here are my behavior charts I use and scan to my parents in my TPT store for purchase:
Progress Monitoring and Reporting: One expectation as a special educator is reporting to parents how their child is doing in regards to their IEP goals through progress monitoring updates whether that's quarterly or monthly. However, one thing I always ask myself is 'how can I give this parent more information aside from progress monitoring that gives them a full picture of their child?' One thing I do is send out weekly behavior reports. Keep in mind, I work in a self-contained behavior setting. So behavior is the main focus for my students. For many of you weekly behavior reports may not be feasible or may be too intrusive of supports. For me, this a great way for myself and the parents or caregivers to see or catch an escalation in behaviors before they continue to escalate. If you are familiar with how I do my behavior charts, then this part of the weekly email will make sense to you. I ensure to include an ongoing snapshot of how they are progressing as the weeks and months go on. I snapshot the color they end on their behavior chart and include that in my overall parent email weekly recap. If you want to read more about my behavior system that includes my behavior charts and how I collect data click below:
Frequent Meetings: One thing I've done in the past for parents who struggled getting involved is set up weekly/monthly phone calls or meetings to just touch base on how their child is doing. Sometimes, for many of our busy parents, getting information all at once is just more feasible and easier for them as opposed to little bits each day. Touch base with your parents and ask them what works best for them! One great thing that has come out of the pandemic is our use of virtual platforms to video conference with our parents. To me, this just makes it more feasible for our parents to have a face-to-face meeting without taking the time to travel to the school, but also feels personable and meaningful. I found these meetings gave me so much more perspective from the parents or caregivers as well as continued to build a foundation on creating a positive parent communication!
Regardless of which way you find is best to communicate with your parents or caregivers, the idea behind this blog post is that communication is key to ensure a successful input from the parent and active participant on the case conference team. If we want our parents to advocate for their child, we really need to make them able to advocate by knowledge, resources and active participation in meetings that involve them engaging purposefully.