Parents and carers are the experts on their child, knowing and understanding them best and by far are the biggest influence in a child’s life. Engaging with parents and carers gives them the chance to understand the important role that they play in their child’s learning and development. It is important that practitioners value the parent and carer’s knowledge and understanding of their child. This is crucial in building a positive trusting relationship between the practitioner and parent/carer allowing mutual respect to flourish. Practitioners should spend time getting to know each family and treating them individually, show interest and build on family’s strengths. Make every point of contact and communication an opportunity to develop empowering, respectful relationships. When parents, carers and practitioners work together with a sense of mutual respect this creates increased confidence for the child with a positive view of themselves and their learning. We can also be a gateway, for both child and parent/carer, to other specialist services.

As practitioners we have a duty to be ‘Getting it right for every child’ (GIRFEC). This is a national approach designed by Scottish Government to ensure parents, carers and professionals work together in a coordinated way to give the child the best start in life and improve life opportunities (Scottish Government, 2020).

There are three main aspects to consider when working with families, parental involvement, parental engagement and family learning.

 What is parental involvement? 

Parental involvement describes the ways in which parents can get involved in the life and work of the EL&C or school setting. Parental involvement includes activities such as parental representation in the development of the vision, policies or improvement plans of the setting and other key decisions.

 What is parental engagement? 

Parental engagement is about parents’ and families’ interaction with their child’s learning. It can take place at home, in the setting or in the community. Where it takes place is not important. The important thing is the quality of the parent’s engagement with their child’s learning, the positive impact that it can have and the interaction and mutual development that can occur as a result of that interaction.

What is family learning?

 Family learning encourages family members to learn together as a family, with a focus on intergenerational learning. Family learning is a partnership approach which can lead to positive outcomes for both adults and children’. (Education Scotland, 2020)

Self-evaluation is a key factor in influencing our practice for the benefit of children’s outcomes. In ‘How Good is Our Early Learning and Childcare’ (HGIOELC) quality indicator 2.5: Family Learning focuses on three key themes: Engaging Families in Learning, Early Intervention and Prevention and Quality of Family Learning programme. The emphasis of this indicator is for all Early Learning and Childcare settings to work in partnership with families to support improvements in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing, increasing positive impact on learning and achievement resulting in better outcomes for our families (Education Scotland, 2016).