Engages Families and Communities

Overview

This Assessment is a Performance Task in which you will take on the role of an early childhood professional at an early childhood center who is asked to analyze the center's current plan for family and community engagement. You will analyze the current plan and make recommendations to improve upon the current family and community engagement plan.

Envision that you are a pre-kindergarten teacher at Little Steps Early Childhood Care Center, which serves students from one to eight years of age. The early childhood care center is located in a diverse neighborhood with people of different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. The director of the center has received word that it must undergo an accreditation process in three months.

In preparation for this accreditation process, the director has organized several committees to ensure that certain areas will pass accreditation.

The director has asked you to head the Committee on Family and Community Engagement. You must analyze the center's current plan regarding family and community engagement, and suggest ways the center can improve upon its family and community engagement plan to ensure it meets accreditation criteria.

Each part of this assessment should:

1. Use the Assessment documents and video as required.

2. Reflect the criteria provided in the Rubric.

3. Adhere to the required assignment length.

4. Use the APA course paper template available here. All submissions must follow the conventions of scholarly writing. Properly formatted APA citations and references must be provided where appropriate.

Professional Skill: Written Communication is assessed in this Competency. You are strongly encouraged to use the Writing Checklist and to review the rubric prior to submitting.

This Assessment requires submission of two (2) documents and one PowerPoint presentation. Part I and Part III are Word documents and Part II is a PowerPoint.

Instructions

Before submitting your Assessment, carefully review the rubric. This is the same rubric the assessor will use to evaluate your submission and it provides detailed criteria describing how to achieve or master the Competency. Many students find that understanding the requirements of the Assessment and the rubric criteria help them direct their focus and use their time most productively.

Part I: Family and Community Engagement Analysis

Imagine you are walking down the hallway one day and encounter one of the kindergarten teachers, Ms. Shannon, speaking with a parent during pick-up time, as shown in this video. Many families have expressed concerns about the activities that their children partake in while they are at Little Steps Early Childhood Care Center. These parents say that their children seem to be playing a lot more than learning.

Imagine the early childhood professionals interviewed in this video are your colleagues at Little Steps Early Childhood Care Center. This video shows how they have responded to the families' concerns.

Using the information from the videos, the Little Steps Newsletter, and the transcription from a home visit, write a three-page response that describes how the center's policies and practices either align with or need improvement in order to align with the NAEYC Principles of Effective Practice Website.

Part II: Family Engagement Presentation

The next Parent-Teacher Association meeting will be focused on educating families about activities that will enhance their children's learning outside of the early childhood care center. Create a 10- to 12-slide PowerPoint presentation that includes the following:

1. Five specific examples of developmentally appropriate learning activities for use within the home and community. Include a rationale in the notes section of your PowerPoint for each of the specific activities you describe.

2. Two slides describing community resources the families in the community could access to promote the healthy development and learning of their children. Describe each community resource and explain how it can support the families in fostering healthy child development and learning.

Part III: Recommendations for Improving Family and Community Engagement

In a three- to five-page response, describe at least three culturally responsive strategies that Little Steps Early Childhood Care Center can implement to engage families and communities.

In your response, explain how utilizing The Head Start Parent, Family, and Community Engagement Framework, and NAEYC Principles of Effective Practice, can foster family and community engagement.