Family Engagement Core Competencies: A Body of Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions for Family-Facing Professionals

 

Over the past three years, we at NAFSCE, have been on a journey to uncover and understand the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that family-facing professionals bring to forming strong family, school, and community partnerships. We are bringing what we have learned together into the Family Engagement Core Competencies: A Body of Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions for Family-Facing Professionals (Family Engagement Core Competencies).  

 

The purpose of the Family Engagement Core Competencies is to create a nationally agreed-upon and unifying set of professional competencies for the family engagement field. While there are a number of standards documents that stress the importance of family-facing professionals having family engagement competencies, these standards are typically aligned to roles within specific fields and organizations (e.g., educators, school counselors, administrators, parent associations, etc) or to particular points in children’s development, most frequently the early childhood years.

 

To our knowledge, there is currently no one set of competencies for family-facing professionals to practice family engagement in education across the developmental spectrum, particularly one that is grounded in an equity and social justice orientation. The goal of the Family Engagement Core Competencies is not to replace or supplant the existing work that has come before it, but rather, to enhance, unify, and amplify it.

The Family Engagement Core Competencies are important for a number of reasons:

● Without an underlying set of guiding competencies, preparation and continuous learning of family engagement becomes haphazard and siloed. There needs to be a strong set of competencies – a north star – which preparation and professional learning strive to reach. 
● Family-facing professionals are often not well-prepared for family engagement. Family-facing professionals frequently report that they receive little support in their pre-service or professional learning to engage families. The Family Engagement Core Competencies will help shape a scope and sequence for more comprehensive learning and training.  
● Family engagement is a matter of equity. The role of systemic racism, implicit bias, and income inequality in shaping educational and opportunity disparities are more pronounced than ever before and require a guidepost to ensure mutual reciprocal relationships among families, communities, and institutions to rebuild trust and equity in our society. 
● Family-facing professionals need a new set of tools and strategies to engage families. The watershed moment of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world, one in which education will never be the same as it was before. The Family Engagement Core Competencies offer a new way of preparing educators and retooling them with an understanding of equity, health, and family well-being. 

 

To learn more about the Family Engagement Core Competencies, please watch the following recordings of the two-part webinar series:

The Family Engagement Core Competencies was developed across six main phases. In the first phase, NAFSCE convened a credentialing committee inclusive of parents, educators, state leaders, and faculty in the family engagement field to discuss what effective family-facing professionals know, do, and believe. In the second phase, a research team synthesized the themes, and aligned them to existing research and key family engagement frameworks. The eight emerging competencies were then vetted with both educators and faculty, after which, these same competencies were cross-walked against a set of 16 professional standards.  In the fifth phase, NAFSCE reconvened its credentialing committee and hosted conversations with key stakeholders – including parent leaders, administrators, community partners, and teacher leaders – to provide feedback on the work.  Finally, in the fall of 2021, NAFSCE launched a field survey to glean feedback on the field about the work. 

We envision that this document can be used by a range of family-facing professionals in a variety of contexts:    

● Educators, family liaisons, and other staff in schools to assess their practice and engage in dialogue with others around family engagement topics 
● Principals, professional development providers, and coaches to structure the scope and sequence of professional and continuing learning opportunities

● Faculty in educator preparation programs to develop syllabi and other course materials 
● State Education Agencies to guide the development of policies, mandates, standards, and accreditation of preparation programs  
● Afterschool, library, and museum staff and others in community organizations who provide families with opportunities to learn and acquire skills through their services  
● Nonprofit organizations, associations, and others to develop credentialing initiatives 
● Parent leaders to advocate for high-quality education in their communities and nationally 

We invite you to sign up to receive updates on the initiative and be informed of opportunities to participate. To learn more about this work, please contact  Margaret Caspe.