Family conferences are planned to last at least 30 minutes and should involve both the child and the family.
Purpose:
Family conferences provide an opportunity for the classroom staff, family and child to effectively communicate goals for the child. Conferences provide an opportunity to continue building positive relationships with the child and family, as well as fostering a collaborative and welcoming environment. Through this design families will have the opportunity and support to strengthen the home-school relationship and partner with classroom staff to reach goals for the child.
Recommendations:
- Any concerns about a child should not be kept until a formal conference is planned. Immediate attention to questions about a child’s development or documented concerns should be communicated early in private, personal communications with the family. Conferences may be useful for continuing those conversations but will primarily be an opportunity to discuss the progress of the child across domains and goals for continuous development.
- Classroom staff are prepared in advance:
- Being aware of effective communication strategies to provide consistent opportunities for the family to share their points of view and to listen attentively and reflect families’ ideas, questions and concerns.
- Proactively setting the stage for collaboration by sending out a questionnaire to get family input before the conference with questions like:
- What school topics, activities, friends does your child like to discuss with you?
- What do you see as your child’s areas of strength?
- In which areas would you like to see more growth?
- Are there any additional topics you would like to discuss?
- Are there any topics you would like to discuss that you would prefer your child not to be part of?
- Who will be coming to the conference?
- Setting a welcoming environment with comfortable seating, displays of children's work, and preparation for the conversation.
- Planning the flow for the conference to cover student goals, assessments, progress and concerns while allowing and encouraging for questions and family input.
- Planning for how the child will be included in the conference, being conscious about the privacy of the child and the sensitivity of the information that may be shared in front of the child and any siblings that may be in the room.
- Planning for follow up to provide opportunities for families to continue to communicate through phone, email or scheduled in person meetings.
