North Carolina is focused on increasing parent involvement

Buy-in from leadership is crucial. If professionals do not believe families are just as essential as every other member on the LICC, families will feel that and NOT want to work with them.  Talk about benefits and welcome concerns. 

• Identify why members may feel uncomfortable working with families. Provide opportunities for non-judgemental discussion.

• Share resources related to other systems to ensure that everyone understand that family engagement is encouraged not just at community level but at all levels and provides a multitude of benefits. The Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA) has a series that offers some great information on this topic!

Provide training on successful family engagement

• Examine how your LICC is performing with family engagement by using a tool like this Parent Engagement and Leadership Guide from the Center for Study of Social Policy or  use something like the Relationship-Based Competencies to Support Family Engagement from Head Start

Provide guidance on how to address concerns and conflict. Knowing the difference between listening for understanding and listening to respond is extremely important and a key part of good communication.   Stress the value in differing opinions and points of view

Determine “point person” to welcome families to the meeting and review the agenda, answer any questions, and ensure they understand the meeting process. 

Create reimbursement guidance/policy. Remember, families need to be treated just like every other professional who attends. Most professionals are paid to attend meetings and families should be compensated as well. As such, have payment methods readily available–they should not be made to wait for months! 

Decide who needs to be at the table to accurately represent the population of your county. Consider things such as race, culture, gender, language, socioeconomic status, geographic location, etc. Don’t forget to include plans for accommodations for language differences (offer translation, captions, etc), accessible location (for people with disabilities or for those using public transportation). Consider the time of day your group will meet and if working family members will be able to participate. 

Brainstorm ideas of how families can contribute to the work of the LICC. What is lacking in your LICC? Are you unable to find children? Are you looking for more ideas on events? Do you want to improve outreach or current services? 

Does the group feel that the meetings are a good use of time? 

Does the group have a good understanding of what the purpose/goal of the LICC?

Are the meetings well structured?  (If the group does not feel that the meetings are a good use of time and well structured, it is likely that family participants won’t either.)

Do you know who attends and why? How do you maintain contact with each other?

Does the meeting length and time work? Do you meet too often or not frequently enough? 

Does the group set goals and accomplish them? Do the same people do all the work?

Review Robert’s Rules of Order (here’s a cheat sheet)

How do you come up with LICC plans or ideas for community outreach events? Is there a formal process to propose ideas or is it something that comes up naturally?