Community-Centered Family Engagement: Using a Strengths-Based Understanding for Family Engagement With Underserved Groups

• In Event: Pursuing the Ideal: In Search of Equitable Early Learning Practices in Public Libraries

Abstract

Educational organizations increasingly recognize the importance of family engagement in improving educational outcomes and equity for underserved groups, yet many struggle to develop an understanding of these groups needed to engage them effectively (Halgunseth et al., 2009). Public libraries have faced similar challenges with engaging families from underserved groups through their programs and spaces (Lopez et al., 2017). Project VOICE, a federally-funded grant, focused on helping libraries overcome these challenges and gain a more holistic understanding of underserved groups to better serve them. The capability approach (Sen, 1992), a social-justice framework that prioritizes underserved groups’ capabilities over their resources, serves as the foundation for the project’s participatory method, which includes both tools and their collaborative processes. This participatory approach moves beyond deficit-framing to center strengths and values of underserved groups and empowers underserved groups to identify the capabilities they value for themselves, rather than having capabilities imposed upon them (Kleine et al., 2012).

The project:
The objective of this part of the project was to test and refine one of the participatory design tools–the Community Exploration Tool (CET)--and its accompanying process. The tool’s purpose is to provide a more thorough understanding of underserved groups to be able to engage and support them more meaningfully. This objective was informed by two design-based research questions.
How might the CET help facilitate conversations with underserved groups and community partners?
How might the CET help surface a holistic understanding of the underserved group?

Because the tools were originally developed to help libraries better engage with and conduct more meaningful, social-justice efforts for families in underserved groups, the tools were tested with Library and Information Science students. A participatory, design-based approach (Barab & Squire, 2004) was used by creating an assignment for the students, where they were asked to complete the CET with a member of an undeserved group or a representative from a community organization that was working with the underserved group. The students were then asked to reflect on their process: using the CET, related challenges, recommended changes, and their learning experience. The students’ CETs and reflections were included in the study dataset only if both the student and the community member/organization consented.

Tentative conclusions & implications:
Preliminary findings indicate that the use of the CET helped facilitate meaningful, strengths-focused conversations with community members or partners who work with underserved groups through semi-structured prompts focused on the underserved groups’ strengths, traditions, goals and aspirations, successes, and challenges; rather than simply areas of need or deficits. Additionally, participants noted that use of the CET both required and fostered relationship-building, tough conversations, and trust formation that sometimes challenged or expanded previously held ideas about the group, indicating a need for ongoing conversations to revisit the tool throughout their work with the group. While the approach was designed for libraries, the CET and this participatory approach have the potential to help other educational organizations acquire a better understanding of families from underserved communities with the goal of developing more meaningful family engagement opportunities for these families.

Authors

• Kathleen Campana, Kent State University

• J. Elizabeth Mills, University of Washington

• Jacqueline Renee Kociubuk, University of Rhode Island

• Michelle Holley Martin, University of Washington