Building Positive and Engaging Relationships with Families

Building Positive and Engaging Relationships with Families

Joyce Escorcia: Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our home visiting webinar series. Today we are going to be talking about building positive and engaging relationships with families. If that's what you're interested in, you are in the right place. Thank you for sharing this hour with us. I am Joyce Escorcia, and I've been one of your hosts this year for our home visiting webinar series. I'm joined by Melisa as my duo buddy for this year. 

We're just glad that you're here with us, and we are very, very excited today to have our wonderful colleague and friend Patricia Castrodad - Rodriguez with us from the National Center on Parent, Family and Community Engagement. If you were with us for our last webinar, then you will remember Patricia. She joined us then, and we had such a good time we said let's do it again. Patty, if you want to say hello again to those that know you and just introduce yourselves to any of our new folks today.

Patricia M. Castrodad - Rodriguez: Thank you. Of course. Hi, everyone. My name is Patricia Castrodad - Rodriguez, and I am a bilingual TTA specialist working with the National Center on Parent, Family and Community Engagement. I am honored to be here with you, sharing this space with my DTL friends and colleagues, Joyce and Melisa Jaen. Thank you so much for the invitation.

Joyce: No, thank you. We're going to hear more from Patricia in just a few minutes. We're going to be having some great conversations, and we invite all of our folks that are out there in listening and watching in today to join in the conversation either in the attendee chat or in the QA, whichever you feel most comfortable with. But knowing that you do not have to, if sometimes following the chat can feel like a little much and you just want to focus in on what we're talking about, feel free to close that widget, and you can listen in to the conversation as well.

Feel free to participate in whatever way feels best for you. I want to point out our participant guide, you can find that in the resource widget for today. And we're going to be referring back to this throughout our time together, just a place to gather your thoughts. If you hear something that you really like or have a resource that you want to go back to, you can jot it down in that participant guide. And it includes a list of resources related to our topic today. We wanted to be sure that you have access to that. 

If you haven't downloaded it, I encourage you just to take a second and download that as well. And for this season of the home visiting webinar series, we really wanted to focus in on some of those foundational strategies for supporting home visitors. We've talked about understanding the foundations of the home visitor role. We had our friend and colleague Donna Ruling here that was talking about all about the foundational pieces and the role of a home visitor. And as we mentioned in our last webinar, we had our lovely friend Patricia here, and we were talking about honoring home and home - based programs. 

Today we're going to be talking about those relationship things. If you are new as a home visitor and just kind of looking as a refresher and to kind of hone your skills a bit, or if you're a vet and just wanting to join the conversation and share some of your lessons learned, please, we just come and get what you need from our time with it. We are going to get started. And Melisa, I think you're going to tell us a little bit more about our time together today.

Melisa Jaen: Yeah. No, I hope you guys can hear me. I had some issues with the other audio device. You guys can hear me clear? OK, perfect. Well, just as you mentioned.

Joyce: Yeah, we can hear you.

Melisa: Good, perfect. Patty, we're excited that you're joining us today because during our time, we're going to be talking about how to create those positive relationships that, as Joyce mentioned, build on the trust between the home visitor as well as the family. We're also going to discuss some strategies that really help in that planning and home visits. And that group socialization, seems to be something that we, when we have these webinars is something we're constantly getting asked, what are those strategies. 

And then just talking a little bit about family partnership agreements and the goals that families have and how we can support them. We always have our ELOF, and we could never do a presentation without it. But I just wanted just to start saying that we know that the first five years of life of the young children's life, there's just so much happening. There's learning and developing, and children are actually learning all the skills and the behavior and just the knowledge in each of these five Head Start, early learning outcomes domains, which we also refer to the ELOF.

And we know the importance  of providing not only the support but also helping and fostering that learning and development. All the children, each of the children in our care or in our programs, in our classroom, in our home visiting program reach their full potential for school, but also for life. As we think about these supports and all the supports for the learning and development, we also need to consider the quality of those learning experience because that is going to be different for each child. This eventually influences and also impacts their overall learning and development. 

As we think about our role as home visitors, just knowing the family and the children's experiences, we can actually help better understand what they need and how we can support those effective learning experiences. For the children as well as for the families to be able to engage in the child's learning. The ELOF is one of those wonderful resources that not only the home visitors could use but the parents can use to help guide their understanding of their children's development according to their age.

They could use this to plan daily activities, identify materials in the home they can use to support the children's development and learning. And as we see here, one of the domains in the ELOF framework is the social emotional development, which is that pink pillar there or the column. What we know is that when children experience positive social and emotional development in these early years, it does provide for strong foundation and lifelong learning and development.

What we see here is that the social emotional development domain, as we see has the four subdomains which is relationships with adult, relationships with children, emotional functioning and the sense of identity and belonging. For our session today we're only going to focus on two of those subdomains which is relationship with adults and relationships with other children. Just as a reminder, social emotional development refers to the child's ability to create and maintain meaning. I'm going to back up a little bit, refers to the child's ability to create and sustain meaningful relationships. 

We know that through these caring, responsive and stimulating relationships, children not only learn, but they also have that confidence to explore the world around them. Just a couple of things, as we think about it. It's really important to support children's social, emotional development, their ability to build these relationships. But it is also as our role as home visitors to help support parents to build these positive relationships as well. And we build those relationships with families is very important. 

I wanted to highlight that as we think about building these relationships, because we know they're key to a successful home visiting experience. One of the things we're going to be talking about and really focusing in is on parents participating in the planning and delivery of not only the home visits but is also the socialization. Really engaging parents, because we know when parents are engaged, they do support their child's ongoing growth and development, which is key. 

This is why we're excited that we have Patty here with us so that she can help us dig a little bit into the resources that are available and also some of those strategies. Patty, just would you or can you, and I know you can, share a little bit about the framework and how to build these positive and engaging relationships with families.

Patricia: Sure, Melisa. Thank you. And as I listened to you, I was jotting down and thinking about really developing caring and responsive relationships. Let's ground ourselves in the PFCE framework. And the PFCE framework is our guide. We use it, program leaders, staff, families and communities use it because this is the road map for effective family engagement. We cannot think about parent, family and community engagement without talking about equity. 

A central part of the PFCE framework is the relationship arrow, that top arrow, along with the arrow that defines equitable, inclusive, culturally and linguistically responsive family engagement. And this shows us how we can intentionally support positive, lasting outcomes for children and families. Let's look at the first two columns on the PFCE framework, program foundations and program impact areas. All the interactions and practices and activities that happen in the program foundations and impact areas column are supported by equitable, inclusive, culturally and linguistically positive goal - oriented relationships. 

Therefore, it is more likely for families and children to make progress and reach positive outcomes. And we can see the last two columns on the framework, family outcomes and children outcomes. In home - based programs, our work is to lean into the top arrow. You might be thinking about how do we do this? We do this in how we show up to the homes of our families. As we all know, we practice certain characteristics that many of us embrace in equity conversations with staff and families and colleagues and that these could be used when engaging with families during home visits. 

We work with home visitors to embrace these characteristics. These can lead to positive goal - oriented relationships in the beginning and throughout the relationship with the family. When we enter homes, we enter homes with humility. We talked a little bit about that in the last webinar where we need to accept that we may not know it all, vulnerability. We're going to be exposed to the possibility of being wrong or making a mistake. Sometimes we judge when we think about equity and biases. 

Sometimes we judge a family by what we see or even the neighborhood or even the condition of dwelling. We entered the homes with curiosity. We have this desire to know or learn from family, we need to use skills such as active listening. And, I say last but not least, I would say intentionality. We need to make deliberate, thoughtful choices in what you say and do. The work you do with family is incredibly important, and a strong, authentic and meaningful relationship is the foundation of a successful family partnership. It requires to lean into that top arrow of the framework. 

Now let's transition to the next slide, and let's expand and share what does equitable PFCE mean. As we develop deep and meaningful relationships with families, we do this by honoring their journey while prioritizing equity, inclusion, culture, and language. Equitable PFCE honors diversity among children and families by offering the support they need based on their unique strengths, needs and circumstances. In home visiting we are gifted with the unique opportunity to practice this approach as families allow us to enter their space. 

It means that as we enter the family space, we must be open to acknowledging that children and families come to Head Start with different histories and experiences. While the goal is for all children and families to have an equal opportunity to reach their full potential, efforts to support children and families must be tailored to meet them where they are, and that literally means where the family is. That could be not only in the physical space but also where they are in terms of their emotions. 

In other words, each family doesn't need the same, but in partnering, we're always thinking about tailoring and giving each family what they need, meeting them where they are. Now I'm really excited to introduce you to the equity drivers. I always start this slide by saying that we all participate in a great mission, and that is Head Start. The core of the Head Start's mission is and always has been to promote equity across race, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, educational level, ability, age, right, citizenship and geography. 

This mission really serves as a model for parent, family and community engagement practices. I just want to share briefly an equity, a working definition of equity. Equity means ensuring an anti - bias and nurturing environment where children, families and staff. I love this part because it includes you, Head Start staff, feel seen, heard and acknowledged. Where they can reach their full potential. 

All the efforts to support children and families must be tailored to meet them where they are so they have a sense of belonging and connection to the Head Start community. I'm just going to briefly provide an overview of the five equity drivers, and I'm just going to start with understand and challenge bias. Biases are attitudes or stereotypes that favor one group over another. We all have biases. We are socialized that way. We want to develop approaches to challenging and changing those biases to improve an equitable PFCE. 

Remember what I said, how we show up in the homes of families. We need to be self - aware and have the opportunity to step back and really self - reflect about where are these assumptions coming from? I'm looking at the slide, OK, let's go to be open to the many ways families may want to be engaged. This driver is about the considerations needed for remaining open to how families may decide to engage. This involves remaining to be curious and to continue to learn about each family's strengths, viewpoints and expertise. 

I really encourage everyone to ask families about how they want to be engaged. I'll move to the other one, discover and uplift family and community strengths. This driver is about discovering and uplifting the strengths of families and communities and not just seeing them for their needs or for what they lack. I'll move to using power responsibly. We all and this includes home visitors and program staff, play an important role as partners with families. 

We strive to build relationships with families based on mutual respect and trust and to really value families as equal partners. We are responsible for connecting families to the services and resources they need in the program and community. This driver is about recognizing power and how to use it responsibly. Sharing power with families and even shifting power to families. 

And last but not least, it's recognize families as partners and honor their contributions. Families and communities need to be at the center of the decisions that really affect their lives. When we see families as our partners in our work, we see them not just as recipients of Head Start services, but we honor their knowledge and strengths. Joyce, I will turn it to you. You want to talk a little bit about having points of building relationships and that relationships are key, right?

Joyce: Yes, definitely. And I loved all of the things you shared. And I feel like we could sit and talk about each one of those drivers and have some great conversation. Maybe that's our next season, thank you so much, Patty. That overview and I know for me; I was thinking about what does that look like for me with where am I within each other's drivers and thinking about the role of the home visitor specifically for our conversation today. 

Now we want to bring it in for our conversation today when we're thinking about relationships because that really is where it all starts. And we're talking about the equity drivers. We're talking about the framework. We're talking about the ELOF. When we've got lots of frameworks and cool graphics and lots of really good stuff. But at the heart of it all, it's all about those relationships and those connections. And that's what I think is the most powerful, and that's what we're talking about today. And as a home visitor, your role in that is so important.

And to think a little bit I'll invite you, you can just kind of reflect on this personally. You're welcome to share in the group chat. I see when you guys were in the lobby, you saw our poll everywhere with our QR code. And I see many of you shared your thoughts, ideas there, and we're going to go there. But thinking about what is one way that you support building relationships with families that you serve, or what's one way that you support building relationships with children? 

And then what's one way that you support building those relationships between parents and children. Because it's home visitors we're going to talk a little bit about that, about the opportunity that we have is to kind of support parents and encourage them in their confidence and capacity as their child's first and very most important teacher. When you're thinking about these questions, is it, when you first meet them, how are you building those relationships? Maybe it's from the first time you come into the home. 

Maybe it's the first time you meet the child or when you're working through a challenge with the family as well. Think about what kind of comes to mind when you're seeing these questions come up here. I invite you to pop it into the group chat here. Just to kind of sit for a moment and think about those things, and just pop them in the chat for us. Melisa and Patty, while we're waiting for our friends to pop in chat, is there anything that's coming up in your mind around these things about what's one way that you could support building those relationships with families?

Melisa: I was just going to say …

Patricia: Sure, I was, go ahead. I was just thinking about the points of being culturally responsive to families, interests and needs and making space for families as partners and decision makers. I started off saying that families and children need to be seen, heard and acknowledged. Especially with families from racial groups that have been historically underrepresented. Any thoughts, Melisa?

Melisa: I was just going to say trust, and it looks like our chat is, we have a lot of great responses, and I want to say that also I thought about being respectful and nonjudgmental, which is something that D.R. [inaudible] mentioned. But Joyce, I see some great responses here. Consistency, adapting, adapt to their culture and environment. And that goes to that idea where we say that we need to be ready for parents and not parents, be ready for our program. I think that Janaya said that very beautifully.

Joyce: Yes, I love the things that are coming into the chat as well. And I'm going to share my screen and you can see what came into our poll everywhere before we even started the webinar. And how those kind of the same sentiments that we're seeing come in the chat were also part of the conversation that was happening even before we started today. Patricia and Melisa, you guys can confirm that you're seeing my poll everywhere screen. Yes?

Melisa: Yes.

Joyce: OK, good. I'm sorry I can't see the nod. I felt it, but I just needed to be sure. These were some of the responses that we've we got even before we got started today as well. We have been in poll everywhere. It's strictly anonymous stuff, you won't see your name, but you might see your comment here. One just by having casual or structured conversations with them to find out what's important. 

And I'll tie that back to the chat, someone says just getting to know them for no specific reason, just looking to connect with families. Just to connect and to build kind of relationship and trust. I thought those things went really well together. And then we see, just scroll just a bit. Trying to be a good listener and plan services around those needs and goals. That's something that came up a lot in the poll everywhere, definitely being that active listener calling the families to introduce themselves and setting a time and date for the visit. Just human resources. 

I saw in the chat it said just being relatable so that folks just can know - you don't have to be perfect. You just need to be genuine in your approach. That's what really we all look for just genuine connection. It’s just about being relatable and real. I love that as well. Having trust, respect, have trust, respectful, and listen to them when you're having communications. It's that active listening and being present that's something that came through. Building time and trust, spending time together. 

And of course, I'm probably thinking about across the program, things like parent day, parent meetings, focus on father days, all those kind of things, Doughnuts with Dads. Those are always popular, especially for me because who can pass up but a yummy doughnut here and there. Learning family [inaudible]. Building relationships with families. Again, just a lot of really great responses. 

These are just kind of thoughts and things to carry forward as we're having our conversation today. We'll compile a list of and of the responses, and we can post those to MyPeers as well. I'm going to stop sharing my screen and we'll come back to our deck here. Thank you guys for sharing and for always being up for a great conversation there. With all of those great things in mind by the examples that we saw, the conversations that we've had, we know that the relationships that children develop with caring adults shapes the way that they see the world. 

And that those relationships really affect all parts of their life and their development moving forward. That really does set the tone on how they see the world and the people in the world as the people that they know and those people that they will come to know. When we're thinking about child's healthy development, it really depends not just on the quality but the reliability of relationships. Both within their families and outside of their families. As a home visitor, you're also a part of that story and that connection as well. 

And it's through those relationships that children learn about the world around them. It's all about the relationships. When we're thinking about home visiting and of the families in general, we know that families know their children a lot better than anyone else does and that they really are kind of that first and most important educator in their lives. Young children are social creatures. I have a three - year old, and she is a social butterfly right now. 

She wants to know what everybody's name is, and she just wants to know all the things. When we're thinking about children that social being that they aren't growing into that they really learn through those social interactions with others, even strangers. But young children can learn even more from adults that they are familiar and comfortable with. They have that trust, and they trust what those adults say. 

Whatever it is, it's like, “That's what my mommy said or that's what my poppy said” and that's it. Being familiar with the adult kind of effects that social relationship with that adult. We're thinking about that. The more trust there is, it also impacts learning in a positive way as well. When children are familiar with adults, it really increases the number of interactions and the opportunities for learning as well. 

What this means for home visitors is that strong relationship between that parent and child really enhances and supports that child's learning and social development. That's where we're coming into the picture as home visitors. That this is really the focus of what we do in home visiting is about strengthening that parent - child relationship and that it's that parent - child relationship that nurtures all aspects of the child from physical, the emotional, the social development of that child. It's all impacted by that relationship that they have with that parent or their caregiver family member. 

It's through that relationship that the child learns about whether the world is safe and secure. Whether they are loved, who loves them, what does that love look like? What happens when they cry, when they laugh or make a face? It's who they turn to when they experience those emotions. Just some things there, but again, just to really ground us in our place and space within that connection between the parent and the child. 

And that we know that in our work as home visitors, what really sets us apart from group care, besides the fact that we're getting to go into families' homes on a weekly basis, which is a great privilege and honor in itself. It's that our work is done through the parent. That we're working to support their confidence in child development knowledge. We can really impact their behaviors or even understanding how important what they do and how they do it is with their child. The thing that we really want to emphasize here is the importance of not only recognizing but supporting those parent choices. 

And here you see are just a few parent behaviors that can really positively impact child development and really reinforce why it's important for us to support these parent child relationships and those positive interactions. Things like affection, and this refers just to that warmth, that physical closeness, those positive expressions towards a child. 

And that related to outcomes such as less antisocial behavior and better adjustment, more compliance, greater cognitive ability and school readiness. And acknowledging that affection can look and feel different or will look and feel different within each family and also within each culture. Those are things to know there as well, and we'll talk a little bit about that. And then another kind of behavior that parents can kind of embody to positively impact their child's development is responsiveness. 

And that's really about how the parent is responding to a child's cues, their emotions, their words, their interests, their behaviors. Just how they react to those things that happen with their child or how they react when their child does something or says something, or it's looking for a response or just through recognition. How does the responsiveness relate to the children's social development may be a question. 

When the adult in the child's life demonstrates responsiveness, it really is associated with child outcomes such as increased secure attachment, improved cognitive and social development, increased language development, even decreased behavior problems and better ability to kind of self - regulate and kind of work on things like empathy and emotion regulation. Or as we call them in my house like big feelings. 

Something else too is encouragement. When we think about encouragement, that's just defined as that active support of exploration, effort, skills, that curiosity, creativity and play. It's just that support of all of those things, that support of a child is discovering all the things that are new to them that maybe are something that is just common for us. Then when we're thinking about how encouragement relates to that social emotional development is when adults demonstrate encouragement that children tend to show less negativity. 

They demonstrate a willingness to try new things, to take risks to try to take on a challenge, even increase cognitive and social and development. There's some links there with better language development as well. And then there's also teaching. We think of teaching, we're referring to shared conversation and play. That shared conversation and play, that cognitive stimulation, explanations and questions. When we're thinking about teaching or again those kind of shared conversations and explanations and how that relates to social and emotional development. 

That positive outcomes associated with teaching include those things related to cognitive and social development language, more conversations, and just warmer literacy skills even. And just in those interactions and in those things that parents do, there are such connections with all of those things. When we talk about teaching, we also want to like approach, even discipline as a means of teaching. 

We can share strategies with families who are interested in ways to focus on positive behaviors that children exist. This can be such a powerful message for parents and really, all families want their children to thrive and do well. This is a way to kind of have those conversations and encourage them and like, “Hey, you're doing these things. Like let's just kind of keep going.” And then just playing and having fun together. That is last on the list but the most important thing is just we want to encourage and support parents just to be in the moment and play and have fun with their children. 

And that when we think about the impact of play on social development, a child will repeat what they enjoy. Which leads to practicing and mastering important skills. And that we want to think about how we can support families to be proactive and set their child up for success by having realistic expectations and communicating kind of those behavioral expectations during play and other times when children are relaxed and open to learning. 

All of those things are important. And the way we approach our work and families really plays an important role in supporting parents and families. Patty, any ideas that you want to share? Anything that's just kind of bubbling up for you?

Patricia: I'm thinking about children learn best with secure and warm relationships. And that's because children, families, and I would add staff, home visitors, want to feel seen, heard and acknowledged. And you're talking about affection, responsiveness, encouragement, teaching play and fun, and play and fun should be at the top of the list. And how all these elements really are part of a secure and warm relationship. 

And that means not only between families and staff but between and among family, staff and children. And these relationships really develop over time. And as I listen to you, I was thinking about, these relationships are really fueled by families' passion for their children. Because families are the first and most important teachers of their children. As you mentioned, are really based on mutual respect and trust and also affirm and celebrate families, cultures and languages. 

Home visitors play a key role in acknowledging and asking families how they might want to be engaged. We need to consider their culture and traditions, and at the same time, we will be uplifting their strengths, lift experiences and expertise. I think it's really important that within these secure and warm relationships, we need to provide opportunities for two - way communications because families are our equal partners. I always say we work with, capital letters, with families. 

And these secure and warm relationships really include authentic interactions that are meaningful to those who participate in them, and that is children, staff and families. As you work with children and families, a strength - based attitude is available and handy when you're supporting a family during a home visit. And what comes to mind is I'm a mom of two, and I'm thinking about what parenting is. And I think you tapped in, Joyce, a little bit there. And I think it's many and all things. Happiness, joy, it requires self - confidence. 

But along with loneliness and sadness and a lot of uncertainty. And parents work to balance these emotions along with the varying experiences and behaviors that their children and themselves might show. I'm thinking about the connection between balancing these parenting and what that really requires. And it's about learning to keep up with their children's rapid developmental changes and those constant changes that require us parents to become comfortable with being uncomfortable and learn how to calm and ground and be grounded. 

A strength - based approach really demonstrates that all families can make progress with this attitude. Staff and parents can become partners who strive for better outcomes together. Let's transition to the other.

Joyce: Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I was just going to say, can you tell us more, tell us more about these strength - based attitudes. That could be kind of a new term or approach for some of our viewers today.

Patricia: I will provide an example. And this might be an example, I'm thinking about socializations, and we might approach socializations expressing this parent never comes to our socializations. And a shift in your mindset using a strength - based attitude. If you use a strength - based attitude, your practice will be different. 

When you approach the family, you might gain some more information about evenings during the week are important and highly valued because that's when mom and dad are both home. I wonder if there are other times or other days that might allow this family to join us. There's the additive right. There's a mindset shift between what is the attitude and how you approach your practice. How do you approach the family? Now we can transition to the other slide and think about how we can cocreate strong bonds. Would that work?

Joyce: Yes, definitely.

Patricia: The foundation of a trusting and supportive relationship between staff and parents, and I'm thinking about you home visitors, is established when parents feel seen, heard, understood, respected. And I saw that on the chat box. Think about the second column of the PFCE framework, the red one, program impact areas and welcoming environments. How families and parents feel valued, respected, seen, heard. 

And the importance of the feelings of consistency, dependability, predictability really further deepen these relationships and make them more secure, OK. Home visitors can encourage feelings of trust and security when they see families in a positive light and use the strength - based approach in their interactions with families. As I just said with the example, with a positive attitude, home visitors can begin to create a strong foundation for building partnerships. We can, and when I say we because I feel part of Head Start, but I'm referring to home visitors. 

Home visitors also can seek to understand and act in response to the voices of families. We are better able to provide services and resources that are culturally responsive and that reflect a community's values when we seek to understand with curiosity. And we really honor parents and families' voices. Culturally responsive to families' interests and needs. And we need to provide or make space for families as partners. 

They're the decision makers. They make the decisions that are impacting their lives. I would say I want to emphasize on this that we should really be responsive, culturally responsive, especially with families from racial groups that have been historically underrepresented. I'm going to turn it over to Melisa.

Melisa: Yeah. Wow, Patty, that was a lot. And thank you. I think the strength - based approaches are always helpful as we think about working with families. And you said it. Jerry said it many times, relationships are key, right. As we think about our relationships, those nurturing and responsive relationships are key to supporting children's healthy social emotional develop. And we know, and you said it very well Patricia, that children develop and that development depends on that trusting, caring, adult, right. 

And we know that when they have this adult they can trust, they actually can manage their thoughts, their feelings and sometimes their actions. Which we know when they are able to self - regulate and have that control, that provides them with that confidence to go out, explore and learn. And thinking about those responsive relationships, they do help. Children build those strong social skills that gives them that self - confidence I just mentioned. 

And this helps them to engage with other peers and adults, and therefore, they create those skills to have positive social relationships as well as their behaviors with and being able to socialize also increase. One of the things too that I was looking at the chat, we do have a lot of folks joining us from Alaska to New York, to Puerto Rico and just thinking of the diverse families that we work with and Head Start and just thinking about all the different families that each one of you work with. 

They come in with the diapers, different background, as well as different cultures, different histories, different experiences. Which that's the life that they lived through, right, their lens. It's really important for us to remember that those effective and positive parent child interactions look different with every, within every family, and they're very unique within their own home setting or within each of those families. 

There’s just different ways that parents interact with their kids and that we need to keep in mind. There are also many different parenting styles, caregiving styles. Parents have different types of play, different ways of interacting. And also the differences, different emotional responses. To their children's cues. As we think about supporting parents, we have to pay attention to those differences. And when parents are responding to, when we're with families and looking at how the parent responds to the child's cue or behaviors. 

We need to keep this in mind because this also depends on the parents' own temperament, their own personal history, as well as their current life situation, their cultural goals as well as their beliefs. As we think about their responses, this can also differ. And I've heard this a lot between gender, right, where both mothers and fathers could influence their child's social emotional development in a different way. Again wanting to emphasize that this is different. 

And what seems to be our normal is really not the normal for others. And as a parent and as a grandmother, I know that. Those are even different within each family and each child. It's just wanted to take a little time to talk about the importance to really learn about the family and people, our participants shared in the chat. Just the importance of really taking the time to know the parents, but also really thinking about helping them build that relationship with their child. Because we know that's where our work is in helping them to help their child achieve those positive outcomes. 

As you mentioned, those strength - based attitudes are important, and they play an important part in supporting the families and their culture and just thinking about the ways that they interact with their parents and just honoring that. But I know you've talked a lot about this already, but any last things you want to say about this before we move on?

Patricia: I just thought that you just were on point when you mentioned that it's important to honor families' histories and experiences and seek information and understanding as you elevate families' voices. Because it's foundational when building positive and engaging relationships with families and their children during home visits.

Melisa: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Patty, again. I do think we have a couple of things and we talked about maybe providing some strategies. Joyce, I'm going to toss it over to you and hopefully you can close us out with some great resources.

Joyce: Yes, definitely. And a lot of the conversations that we've talked about, we've already talked about some of these practices within our conversation. Things like as a home visitor establishing that positive relationship or responding to those unique strengths and culture and realizing that there are a lot of different ways to be right about a lot of things. And I think going in as a home visitor with that first and foremost can be very helpful. 

Facilitating the supportive interactions and establishing a collaborative partnership, and that's been the theme of our conversation today. We wanted to spend our last few minutes talking about some great resources. We've talked about the what and the why and all those great things. But we want you to better walk away with some resources as well. For that, Patty, I just want to ask you, are there any tools that you want to tell us about?

Patricia: Sure. And I'm really excited just to really briefly share with you that the PFCE has a tool to support home visitors and supervisors with building equitable, inclusive, culturally and linguistically responses relationships. There is a professional development assessment tool for home visitors, which will support your family engagement efforts and enhance your professional knowledge, skills and practices.

Let’s move to the other resources that we have. Building partnerships. Series for early childhood professionals. And I want to say that in addition to the ELOF, RBCs PFCE framework, the home visitor online handbook, which has a section on relationship with parents. We have two amazing and important resources that will help your work as a home visitor. And these are the strategies for family engagement, attitudes and practices guide where you will find how family engagement and practices strategies are key to building relationship with families.

And the second resource, family engagement and cultural perspectives, applying a strength - based attitude. You will learn about the ways that understanding families' cultural perspectives can help to build positive relationships. And last but not least, please join the iPD, and we have a really amazing course building partnerships with families along other courses that are amazing. This is a four module learning series, and it really centers around the knowledge and practices about engaging families using a strength - based attitudes, relationship - based practices and reflective practice. Melisa, you want to share with us other resources?

Melisa: Yeah. No, I wanted to back up a little bit, but I think the online learning courses. I do want to just say that they are self - paced, you could definitely share these resources with other home visitors as well as anybody in your program. And I love the four, I love that they're in the four modules. If you're just looking at how do I incorporate that strength base, this is just a great platform to get some of those skills and knowledge for on your own PD, but yes, we do have the next resource here which is the, wait, where are you?

OK, here we go. It is the connecting research to practice. These are tips for working with infant toddlers and their family. There's this series of research to practice briefs, which they cover a variety of different topics that are related to early learning and child development. They were developed specifically to support home visitors and their work with families and children. The briefs are based on the latest research topics that are important, like the ones we've been talking about today, which is social, emotional, early literacy and supporting children who are dual - language learners.

I saw a lot of folks from migrant and seasonal program, this could be definitely a resource. But one of the parts I wanted to highlight was the two sections. There's a research notes, and there's a connecting at home. The research note is for home visitors, and then the connecting at home is for the families. Home visitors could use the research notes just to understand more about how key research findings really inform the effective teaching practices and any learning setting as well as in the home visiting in the homes.

And then the connecting at home could be used directly with families and as kind of like inspirations. I know we're all looking for great ideas on new activities or any suggestions that the home visitor can share during home visit about how to engage with the children in their home. This is definitely something that home visitors could use to talk about their, with the parents about their child development.

And one brief that I like and that I've heard great things about is the one that's titled You're The Best Teacher. And it is the responsive interactions with young children. We encourage you to explore these resources. This one particular explores the importance of adult's responsive social interactions with children. I think that's the last resource we have here, but if there's any …

Joyce: Hey, Melissa. I was just going to pop in and say because I know that we shared a lot. It's a lot of great things. But it was maybe, I couldn't keep up with it. If you're thinking that, no worries. Just a quick reminder to go back to your participant guide for today and all the resources that we've talked about are listed there. Just wanted to pop in with that as well.

Melisa: Yeah. No, thank you for mentioning that. And then, I know that Theresa has done a lovely job in entering some of those links to some of the specific resources that we mentioned as we were sharing some of those great strategies and tips. Lots of ways for you to grab that information. But any final thoughts and suggestions before we close out with our next couple of slides, Patty and Joyce?

Joyce: I say just keep doing the good work and don't feel like you have to do all the things at once. But just remember you're doing good work, and you are enough. If you take one idea from here and decide you want to try it out, that is more than enough. The resources are here as you need them. Give yourself some grace and just keep doing the good work out there.

Patricia: I just want to say something. You are amazing, and we are thankful for all the work that you do as a home visitor in Head Start programs. Thank you.

Melisa: Thank you very much, ladies. Well that concludes our webinar. We just want to make sure that you all can join us for our next webinar, which is August 14, 2024, same time. And we will have a lot more information for you during the next webinar. Thank you very much for joining us, and you all have a wonderful afternoon.