Keeping it Real in Family Partnership

Keeping it Real in Family Partnership is a storytelling project that hopes to inspire conversations about how Cambridge out-of-school time practitioners and families from diverse cultural backgrounds partner to best support our children. Stories highlight promising practices and explore the experiences of families and OST practitioners. Each story is paired with a set of guiding questions to help you go deeper in reflecting on how families and OST practitioners can create more meaningful partnerships.  To support you in using these resources with your staff, download our UPDATED Facilitator's Guide here!

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Parent Voices on Committing to Racial Equity

"Youth of color, in particular, need more support.  At this point it needs to be in every aspect of a child's schooling [including after school] . . . where they have a safe space to be who they are and they are able to express themselves . . .  where they have people that they trust around them . . . and there needs to be systems in place . . . to ensure that things are done in an equitable fashion."

Find Common Ground

"I need to find a common ground for the child from where their culture is coming from and a common ground for what kind of culture we're trying to build in our classroom community. . . I personally really do believe it takes a village to raise a child."

Parent Voices on Family Partnership

"The most important things that organizations can do to build relationships with parents would include regular communication and having opportunities for parents to build rapport with staff."  

Building Empathy

"I want staff members that are working with my kids to be as real with me as possible. As far as mothers or fathers or both, I just know them. It is so familiar. I have been in their situation so many times."

Showing Them that They Matter

"Building trust with families and being culturally proficient, run hand-in-hand."

Showing us 
What they Know

 "For us, it was just really exciting and fun to be in the garden... mingling with other parents, seeing all the kids working together as teams and showing us what they knew." 

Building Dialogue

Creating a Welcoming Culture

"I don't think there is any single way you can be in touch with a family without really knowing who that youth is... We try to be intentional about making phone calls once a month. To create a space for dialogue."

"I attended Cambridge Community Center when I was a kid,
I hung out here. They are always very welcoming, always a
sense of family and, you know, they make you feel like your
​the neighbor next door. I love it here."

Celebrating Families

"One thing we're tryi​ng to push with this age group is parents becoming friends with each other. We do family nights. Just getting to know people as people and not just as parents or caregivers."

Interested in using Stories of Family Partnership to support your staff development efforts? ​

​This guide provides step-by-step instructions to get your training off the ground.

Download Facilitator's Guide

For questions about the project or to share a story of family partnership, please send an email to: [email protected]

Read about our work in this article published by the Global Family Research Project, defining and advancing the fields of family, school, and community engagement.

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​​New Report Highlights Critical Importance of Family Partnership

Equity-based family engagement helps parents and caretakers in underserved communities become effective advocates and culture-bearers in schools, which boosts educational quality and relevance. Learn more in this new report published by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. ​

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Download Report