Today, many families rely on child care centres outside the home-environment setting to help children reach their fullest potential. It is even more critical that vulnerable children such as those with family problems or racially and economically vulnerable receive safe and healthy care that nurtures their optimal growth requirements. Therefore, it is the duty of head start and other early childhood programs staffs to build strong relationships with families of children in their care centres that, over time, will develop into strong partnerships. These collaborations support the child's family well-being by building trust and engaging them in effective goal-setting activities ( California Department of Education, 2019). Mrs Little is one of the early childhood program staffs who work hand in hand with families to build a trusting relationship and help them support their children. As an early start staff, she is presented with unique and different scenarios with her children, and she has to implement different strategies that would be tailored for the child's optimal growth. For example, Little Girl Ava is one of her students in the childcare centre. As an immigrant, the little girl finds it hard to make new friends outside the school environment, which might impact her social life. To cope with this scenario and many others of her students, Mrs Little has to develop specific engagement strategies that would be implemented on the child's family that would allow her to share all positive cases happening with her students. Even though there might be challenges, Mrs Little, just like any other early childhood program practitioner, should effectively engage with family members and gain sufficient and meaningful information to establish and maintain positive goal-oriented relationships.
Little Girl Brianna
Brianna is one among many children in the United States living under stressful financial family conditions. Her family is in financial distress, and they are struggling to meet their basic needs, let alone paying her school fees and providing for her necessities within the children care centre. According to her case study, they are even uncertain of where they will be living next week, and they cannot keep resources with them due to constant relocations. Additionally, the economic instability combined with the vulnerability of Brianna, the nearly constant care they need causes lots of stress and lack of sleep among her parents and childcare professionals. Even though they are faced with such challenges, Brianna's parents want her to have the best opportunity to practice the skills she needs to keep learning and growing, and Mrs Little has a bigger role in making these goals come to fruition. The role of the childcare program is not to solve all the problems with which Brianna's family struggle but to work collaboratively with the child's family and support Brianna's well-being. Therefore, in Little Girl Brianna's case, Mrs Little should employ a goal-setting engagement strategy that would enable her to prioritize the interests and goals of Brianna's family.
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The goal-setting engagement strategy focuses on the goals and concerns of the family. From the point whereby the family enrolls the child on the care program, it is the institution's duty together with child care professionals to create and maintain these partnerships and ensure effective child's growth. When Mrs Little implements this strategy to Little girl Brianna's family, she will be able to learn more about the family's businesses and their most important concerns. I chose this method of engagement since, historically, the strategy engages in constant open communication and discuss the strengths of the skill that everyone can contribute towards a specific goal considering stressors that might impact the process.
Goal-setting with Brianna's family will enable Mrs Little to share positive things with Brianna in several ways. First, the process begins with goal setting, starting when the child is enrolled on the program. Based on the information gathered, Mrs Little could set a social goal that might increase social productivity by making friends and being responsible. Together with her family, Mrs Little is supposed to actively engage in the process and discuss skills and strengths that can contribute to the goal ( Early Childhood and National Centers, 2020) . While goals are important to the family at any point of their progress, an important question that Mrs Little should ask herself are lessons learned about the family during each interaction. In this case, she might brainstorm ideas with her peers or even her supervisors to develop the most effective strategy to tackle their goals and issues. According to research, when family members establish their goals, they are more likely to feel motivated and committed to achieving them.
Secondly, the strategy will enable Mrs Little to share positive things through identity skills. Skills are specific abilities and talents that Brianna's family and the staff member might possess, which, when shared, can contribute to the overall family's goal ( California Department of Education, 2019). Brianna's family is in a financial crisis, and they have a problem maintaining their lifestyle while providing for Brianna's needs at school. Specific skills in the family such as logo design or operation of special machinery might be used in school or anywhere within the community to strengthen their financial situation. With a partnership with Mrs Little and other stakeholders within the institutions, Brianna's family can share positive results, which will most likely impact Brianna's development. Additionally, assessment of unique qualities that positively influence lives can enable Brianna to share her concerns. These unique qualities and talents can help her cope with strains and stress through constant communication with Mrs Little and her family.
Lastly, the goal-setting engagement strategy will share positive things that happen to Brianna by examining stressors. Brianna's friends, financial crisis events, constant relocation and other circumstances can make her feel more anxious and worried. These stressors are inhibitors of initial goals that Mrs Little had set for Brianna – working collaboratively with her family to maximize her positive learning experiences. Her family has multiple stressors, which are associated with poverty and unsatisfactory living conditions. With such stresses, Mrs Little is supposed to help them identify short-term goals that should address their immediate needs. At the moment, her family needs to relocate; therefore, the staff can help them look for community partners with the guide of her supervisor. In this case, the partners can help the family access temporary housing services, which would help normalize their concerns. In the process, Mrs Little should also maintain professionalism to manage stress while still expressing compassion towards the family.
Even though the strategy is effective in the Brianna family's case, Mrs Little can incur some challenges while implementing it. These challenges might include setting unrealistic goals, lacking a time limit to achieve the goal and difficulty in tracking progress. In setting ambiguous goals, Mrs Little, together with Brianna's family, might need to have a stable source of income so that they can support Brianna's education. The problem with such kind of a goal is that it lacks specificity, and using an effective goal-setting system, she might come up with a clear goal that would access the skills of both parents and match them with specific institutions within their state that would increase their chances of being employed. Additionally, their goal might lack a time limit, or progress cannot be tracked. In this situation, Mrs Little should implement an iterative feedback system that would accurately state Brianna's status in school while actively engaging her parents with other stakeholders to improve their financial situation.
Little Boy Jonah
Jonah's grandparents and caregivers are his first teachers. As Jonah begins formal schooling, family participation and support is critical, both at home and in the learning environment. Through communication, however, Mrs Little should be aware of Jonah's household whereby he is being raised by grandparents, which by itself can be a challenge. Jonah is among over 3 million families in the United States that live in a household maintained by a grandparent ( Early Childhood and National Centers, 2020) . Although grandparents acknowledge several benefits of raising grandchildren, such as enhancing family relationships and having a sense of purpose, these families can be economically disadvantaged strongly associated with poor health outcomes. Even though this was not the case, the root issue in Jonah's family's case can be associated with physical health whereby the grandparents are unavailable to perform daily physical activities such as playing and other social activities. Additionally, grandparents may exhibit emotional stress due to lack of privacy, being physically tired or having less time to connect with their friends and spouses, arousing their social health concerns. To address these concerns, Mrs Little should implement a family participation program which would set the stage for children to spend more time with their peer in the childcare program ( California Department of Education, 2019). In this case, the participation program could include family events, home visits, and even fundraising activities that would help shape Jonah's learning experience by spending most of his time connecting with his peers, not his physically inactive grandparents, enhancing his growth and development.
The need for a strong connection with the family program is greater when the child spends their time in child care facilities. Based on the case study, we can safely assume that his grandparents are full-time caregivers, and due to this, he might be spending most of his time in the child care facility. However, even though he might have some time to spend with his grandparents, it is difficult to cope with his physical activity due to the immobility of his grandparents. Therefore, it has come to the attention of Mrs Little that Jonah, one of his students, needs more than normal care routines but additional connection with other children and their families. To enhance this goal, Mrs Little should create a family program as an engagement strategy for Jonah's family. The strategy would allow family participation through regular home visits, family events, and off-hours use of the child care facility.
Jonah's grandparents are not able to keep up with the hyper activities of Jonah, which is critical for his growth. Because they cannot afford frequent babysitting and often feel tied down, family events such as picnics and pancake breakfast will increase his participation outside the child care facility and not directly engage with his grandparents. In this case, the family might include other enjoyable team-building events that could increase his grandparent's social activities. Off-hours use of child care facility could be another family program that Mrs Little could implement in this case study in addition to family social events. In this case, one volunteer could take the initiative to open and close the facility or offer sewing or cooking lessons, among other crafts. These activities could be sub-grouped based on the parents' age o actively engage Jonah's grandparents and other activities involving students in the childcare to increase their social ties. Finally, Mrs Little could also incorporate home visits which would enable the child to feel more comfortable. Jonah could invite his friends to their home to play through a social event organized by Mrs Little and his grandparents. Besides enhancing Jonah's social life, a home visit could provide Mrs Little with an opportunity to know the family better, increasing her ability to understand them and enhance stronger partnerships.
The challenge with using family programs as an engagement strategy is participation. Even though the process has positive results for the child's overall development, other parents might not be ready to take part due to busy schedules or other factors. In this case, some parents, such as Brady's in one of the case study are often too busy to build a connection with their children or even the child care facility. Therefore, developing a family program might be futile unless proactive actions such as parental education can be taken. To tackle this problem, Mrs Little can educate parents on the importance of family connection to the development of the child, which could help them create more time for these programs.
In conclusion, child care professionals should be aware of the importance of building a relationship with families and educate them on such importance. A child's cognitive, social, emotional and academic development strengthens when families and child care staff work together. Whether Mrs Little decides to use the goal-orientation strategy on little girl Brianna or use family program engagement strategy on little boy Jonah, certain best practices are recommended when building strong family relationships with parents. She should constantly communicate with families to receive feedback and understand each family's expectation after their engagement. Therefore, when engagement strategies are involved, a chosen strategy should be effective, and the childcare staff should devise ways to overcome challenges associated with the strategy.
References
California Department of Education. (2019). A Guide to Creating Partnerships with Families
Early Childhood and National Centers. (2020). The Family Partnership Process: Engaging and Goal-Setting With Families.
