Nelhai Mallebay-Vacqueur, a lead teacher at King Open Extended Day, shares her perspective on the key to successful family partnering events at out-of-school time programs. She explains how successful events start with celebrating diversity and cultivating inclusive environments. We join Nelhai at a King Open Extended Day's annual Family Engagement event "The Meal of Thanks" and hear from a parent and children about the meaning and benefits of the event. Click the play button above to listen to the story.

Guiding Questions

• What about Nelhai's approach to engaging parents contributed to the success of the event?
• From the perspective of the parent highlighted in this audio story, what was the major benefit of this event?
• What is one take away from this audio story that you could apply to your work environment? ​

Going Deeper 

• ​Increasing Family and Parent Engagement in After-School: A step-by-step guide that provides creative and insightful tips to engage parents and families in OST. It also includes outreach ideas, case studies, helpful contact information, family survey tools and letter templates.
• Explore You for Youth's family engagement resources and strategies.
• Listen to Karen Mapp explain the 3 Prerequisites of Effective Family and Community Engagement

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