Michelle Belanger

SEI 513
Spring 2014
Family Partnerships

The initial meeting with Amy, the parent advisory chair, went really good. I
felt that the meeting was extremely productive in the fact we were able to talk about
goals of the Parent Advisory Board and obstacles that we may meet.
The goals that we were able to come up with that were important were:
1. To get diverse participation amongst the families at Youth and Family
Outreach. This includes in all of the classrooms and different
socioeconomic and family arrangements.
2. To create a forum where parents can learn, teach and ask questions
about the program.
3. To encourage parent participation in their childs classroom,
environment and center over all.
4. To help introduce parents to other parents for support and friendship.

The biggest obstacles we thought of were:
1. Time: How were parents going to be able to make time to attend these
meetings?
2. Childcare: Was childcare going to be provided? How would parents
be able to attend if they had no other supports?

In order to meet the goals and overcome the obstacles we came up with the
following:
1. Parent Advisory Meetings would be set for the year so parents would
be able to schedule the meetings in advance. (First Monday of each
quarter).
2. Childcare would be provided by staff for the meetings with an RSVP
from parents.
3. Meetings would be held just before Family Fun Nights to encourage
participation and make the meetings and Family Fun Nights worth
attending (Same day just an hour before).
4. Each meeting will have a theme or discussion topic that parents will
know about in advance and the topics will be parent guided.

The initial meeting was very productive as we were able to set the dates and
themes for the Parent Advisory Meetings as well as the Family Fun Nights. (See
separate paper for the complete list).
We also spoke about the first meeting, which was scheduled for March
3
rd
. We decided that the Parent Advisory Meeting would be able the NAEYC
reaccreditation that Youth and Family Outreach was going through. Particularly
what the accreditation looks like and means to families.
For this meeting I created a PowerPoint presentation for the parents and also
allowed them to ask any questions that they may have had about the process.
About 10 parents showed up that represented 7 families and all 5 of the
classrooms. They really seemed to enjoy the power point presentation and had
many questions about the process of reaccreditation and how they can help.
The Family Fun Night was held 2 weeks after the Parent Advisory Meeting due
to scheduling conflicts. Not many parents showed up to the Fun Night so I think it
would have been better to have it after the meeting but as I said because of
scheduling conflicts we could not have it on the same night.