Triple Venn Diagram - Involving, Partnering, and Collaborating

Involving

• Listen to parents
• Demonstrate an understanding of the parent perspective
• Show respect toward the family unit
• Utilize parent ideas
• Treat parents as equal members of the IEP team ("Involving Parents", n.d.)
• Learning at home, volunteering, and participation in decision-making
• Educate parents on how to reach out and who points of contact are

Collaborating

• Characteristics include:
• an understanding that all members add value (Friend, 2008)
• working toward a mutual goal
• sharing responsibility, accountability, and resources

• Requirements include:
• effective communication
• a climate of problem solving (Friend, 2008)
• partnerships with parents, students, and other teachers
• support from school and district administrators
• time to plan implement

• May include:
• multidisciplinary teams
• co-teaching classrooms
• IEP teams
• parent-teacher collaboration
• student-teacher collaboration
• general education-special education teacher collaboration

Partnering

Involving and Partnering

• Families and professionals must value the information and expertise that the other brings to the table
• Shared responsibility for student achievement (Bux and Cuba, 2012)
• Written policies that promote family involvement
• Ongoing training made available for both staff and family
• Joint planning, goal setting, policy development, and evaluation between parents and teachers (Bux and Cuba, 2012)

Involving and Collaborating

• Develop a shared vision
• Multi-way channels of communication that connect schools, families, and students
• Engage parents as educational advisers
• Basic recognition that each side has areas of knowledge and skill to contribute to the joint task of working together for the benefit of the student
• Professionals might think of parents as active 'consumers' of services, and not 'patients' (an essentially passive label). (Mittler & McConachie, 1986)
• Parents and professionals concerned with the learning of students share a number of basic goals.
• Growth and learning in students can only be understood in relation to all the environments in which the student is living.
• "Homework" as interactive activities shared with family members, linking schoolwork to real life.

Partnering

and Collaborating

• Can be long-term

• Relationships can be formal

• Enhance own and each other’s capacity

• Trust in one another

• Team working

• Joint working

• Respect for one another

• Understand visions and missions

• Individuals retain their authority and autonomy

• Defined by different partnership arrangements

• Goals and solutions are better found collectively than separately

• Participation in planning and decision making

Partnering, Collaborating, and Involving

• Consistency in expectation from school to home
• Organized program of school, family, and community partnerships with activities linked to school goals. Assist families with parenting skills, and supporting learning at each grade level. Understand families backgrounds, cultures, and goals for students. Involve families in homework, goal setting, and other curriculum related activities.
• Families as participants in school decisions, governance, and advocacy through school councils, improvement teams, committees, and parent organizations.
• Develop well organized, goal-linked, sustainable partnership programs.
• Basic recognition that each side has areas of knowledge and skill to contribute to the joint task of working together for the benefit of the student
• "Decision making" to mean a process of partnership, of shared views and actions toward shared goals, not just a power struggle between conflicting ideas.

(Strategies for Effective Collaboration with Parents, Schools, and Community Members, 2009)

The purpose of the collaboration is to combine expertise and meet the needs of all learners (Ripley, 1997).

• Short-term or long-term

• Informal to formal relationships

• Participants may represent a single constituency

• Commitment to an individual mission

• Choice of decision-making tools

• Definition:

o Equal commitment

o The state of being a partner

o To be one of a pair on the same side in a game

o A person who shares or takes part with another,

especially in a business firm with shared risks and profits