Program Profile: Montgomery County Community College Children’s Center in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania

The Montgomery County Community College Children’s Center meets the needs of its diverse families, which include faculty, college staff, students, and community members—some  coping with significant challenges.

Program Overview
Many of the families enrolled at the Children’s Center face a variety of challenges. Some parents travel an hour or more to campus; are overextended with working, taking classes, and single parenting; and have no prior experience with parental involvement in their child’s schooling. These personal challenges create barriers to family engagement. Director Debbie Ravaçon says, “We strive to overcome these barriers by first developing a relationship with the parent or guardian; then we offer multiple opportunities to participate in parent education or events, at various times of the day. We issue invitations personally, face-to-face, to those parents who are least likely to attend.”

Family Engagment Program Practices

Family Participation in Program-Level Decision Making
The program’s Parent Advisory Council meets once every month or two and is open to all families. The council discusses parent concerns, program policies and procedures, and parent volunteer opportunities. In the fall of 2009, when the college was in the final stages of building a new facility for the Children’s Center, two parent representatives joined two staff representatives on the Facility Planning Committee.

Two-Way Communication
The Children’s Center benefits greatly from being part of the college. The program is connected to and supported by the college’s Education Department. This helps the program meet its goals for two-way communication and is especially helpful in recruiting diverse staff. For example,

• The teaching staff is diverse and an effort is made to include at least one person of color in each classroom.
• Currently, one bilingual teacher is available to speak with Spanish-speaking family members.
• The program relies on campus personnel and resources to accommodate others who need language translation. For example, a college admissions officer provided translation services for a recently enrolled Chinese family. The translator also shared cultural information with staff members.

Program staff also faciliate two-way communication by using technology to engage families. For example,

• The program uses CreativeCurriculum.net, an online assessment system that includes a parent site. Family members can receive messages and images from their child’s teacher, respond through an online journal, access resources and personalized activity ideas, view weekly planning forms (which are also posted in the classrooms), and post their own observations and assessment data. At Back-to-School Night, program staff demonstrate how to access the site and encourage families to sign on to the site.

Staff extend multiple invitations to social events using multiple means of communication. Examples of events include

• twice-yearly open houses providing informal opportunities for teachers and families to connect and get to know one another better.
• sing-alongs celebrating the end of the fall and spring semesters with all family members plus college faculty and staff. “These are typically standing-room-only events,” says Ravaçon. “We share snacks and socialize after singing, so it’s another opportunity to strengthen our connections.”
• college events such as the annual hat parade, Community Day, a Lively Arts Series that has featured African dance, Chinese instrumentalists, Japanese drummers, and other cultural and artistic performances.

Reciprocal Relationships
Teachers integrate knowledge about families into the curriculum in many ways. For example,

• Program staff use music, pretend food, and other artifacts from the families’ cultures in the classrooms.
• Staff encourage family volunteers to share information with the children. The program’s “Getting to Know You” form asks family members to identify their special skills and invites them to share their unique talents and interests with the program. Families have shared their talents through reading, cooking, art, and music; talked with the children about their occupations; and shared cultural practices and artifacts (for example, Jewish celebrations, Liberian food, and Korean clothing).
• Teachers enhance the classroom experience by using specific information about children. One parent shares, “We recently had a new baby born into the family, and all of the teachers have been wonderful with making this a smooth transition for my toddler―and myself! I witnessed a brainstorming session between them about books that could be read about [new siblings] in school and have had conversations with them about how we are preparing him at home.”

The popular Grandparent/Grandfriend Day is another example of how the program incorporates knowledge about its families in its programming. Ravaçon says, “Since many of our families are three generations within the same household, this program is intended to strengthen the partnerships/connections within the family and between all family members and our staff, all on behalf of the children.” The day includes multiple components.

• Grandparents first enjoy a classroom open house with an art activity. Photos of the event are later displayed in the room.
• The program’s social worker leads a presentation and discussion about the role of grandparents, designed to encourage conversations between family members (for example, Who sets the rules? What if different generations don’t agree?).

A Comprehensive Program-Level System
The hallmark of the program is its comprehensive system for institutionalizing family engagement. According to Ravaçon, “Developing an anti-bias child care center is part of my lifelong commitment to eradicating racism and other biases within my sphere of influence. As the director, a core aspect of my vision is that diverse families feel welcomed and included.”

• The program’s anti-bias approach begins with continual assessment of the program and its procedures.
• The initial face-to-face meeting with individual families includes a discussion of the value the program places on diversity and family engagement.

Developed for NAEYC's Engaging Diverse Families Project through a generous grant from the Picower Foundation.
© National Association for the Education of Young Children.