Building Capacity for Family Engagement: Lessons Learned From the Family Engagement Impact Project

This brief highlights how the Family Engagement Impact Project improved the capacity of families, professionals, and organizations to work together and bolster educational outcomes for low-income immigrant children from birth through age 8.

The project was initiated by the Heising-Simons Foundation to align early childhood programs, school districts, and community organizations in engaging families and teachers to support children’s learning. Funds were awarded to strengthen public-private partnerships, coordinate and integrate family engagement efforts across organizations, and leverage existing community resources. The project had three phases: planning, implementation, and sustainability. This brief presents information from an evaluation of the implementation phase conducted by Mathematica Policy Research.

The Family Engagement Impact Project simultaneously increased the emphasis on family engagement across parents, professionals, and organizations and laid the groundwork for additional system change efforts in support of children’s learning and development. This was done through a mix of capacity-building activities targeted to  different partners, all designed to build knowledge and skills about family engagement. Although improving young immigrant children’s educational outcomes is a long-term goal, the project demonstrated promising short-term strategies to leverage community strengths and enhance family engagement activities for parents, teachers, service providers, and agencies.