Engaging parents and families - A toolkit for practitioners

Parental engagement focuses on ways in which parents, carers and families support and encourage their children’s learning in school and in everyday life. Schools and partners can play a vital role in supporting families to do this effectively and with confidence.
(2018 National Improvement Framework, 2017, p14)

The 'Engaging parents and families: A toolkit for practitioners’ has been developed to provide practitioners with a practical resource to help support partnerships with parents and families in all aspects of their children’s learning. The toolkit is a comprehensive online resource which will continue to be reviewed and refreshed with new content. Each section of the toolkit is a standalone document to enable practitioners to select the specific topic they require.

Within the toolkit there are activities that can be used as a starting point and/or as a tool to measure and evaluate current practice in parental involvement and engagement, family learning and learning at home in early learning and childcare settings, schools or at a local authority level. The activities can also be used in partnership with Parent Council or parent groups.

The ‘Engaging parents and families’ toolkit is organised into various sections and has common themes running throughout each one. These are:

• Building strong, positive relationships with parents, families and communities
• Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC)
• Equality, diversity and inclusion
• Children’s rights and participation
• Developing the Young Workforce (DYW)