A Family Geography Night (FGN) kit can be used to bring families together, teach about the world, give parents the opportunity to share their beliefs, and participate in the educational system while having fun! Geography is an essential element of twenty-first-century education. More than just maps, geography is the interaction of cultures,…

Objective: This article describes an intervention development focusing on the early design stages of a model to improve psychosocial and behavioral health outcomes among children of fathers with incarceration and antisocial behavioral histories. Method: We use a synthesis of the literature and qualitative interviews with key informants to inform a…

This brief describes how investments in student data systems are taking family engagement and student achievement to a whole new level. In addition to addressing areas where a student most needs improvement, the data can serve as a catalyst for home-school communication. Parents benefit from having information about key indicators on which they…

The purpose of this paper is to present the rationale and principles that guided the design and development of PARENTS, a multimedia case-based environment. Following a development research approach, the tenets of constructivist learning, and the advantages of case-based instruction, we developed a multimedia program in which we utilized and…

Community participation in program decision-making and implementation is an ideal that community and academic stakeholders aspire to in participatory research. This ideal, however, can be difficult to achieve. We describe lessons learned about community participation from a quasi-experimental trial aimed at reducing the uptake of smoking among…

Describes the development and functioning of a flexible, inexpensive campus child care service for married students at the East Texas State University. (CM)

Noting that research has shown that the more extensive the parent involvement, the higher the student achievement, this Digest discusses standards for parent/family involvement and describes online resources that can help parents and educators attain those standards. It discusses existing national standards for family involvement programs and…

Demonstrates how one community family life education agency deals with pressures for and against sex education, describing the agency's philosophy and curriculum and providing suggestions for strategic planning. (MP)

An intensive parenting program has significantly increased parent contact with the faculty and counselors at the Marvin Pittman School on the Georgia Southern College Campus. (Author/JC)

Participants in the Dad's Day at the Center for Young Children program meet on Saturday mornings for a series of 12 sessions which combine play and discussion group activities. The first hour of each session is structured so that fathers and their 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children can spend time together experiencing new toys, foods, arts, and games…

A newsletter format and a one-day on-campus orientation program for parents were compared using three criteria: factual knowledge, attitude, and perceptions of the university. Results indicated that different systems of information dissemination have differential effects on the parents of incoming freshmen. (Author)

The first of two volumes on planning parent participation programs, this guide is intended to be an aid in deciding what type of program is most appropriate for a given school. Definitions and purposes of parent involvement programs are offered, followed by an explanation of the importance of determining program goals before designing activities.…

The Toy Library program trains parents to use a limited number of educational toys to teach specific skills, fundamental concepts, and problem solving behaviors to their own three- and four-year-old children. The program is designed to fill the educational needs of the many three- and four-year-old children who are not participants in some other…

Brief reports provided in this paper document aspects of a neighborhood-center project in Hull, England. The project was aimed primarily at facilitating parent/community involvement in the education of very young children through the establishment of parent activity groups. Beginning with activity groups such as mother/toddler clubs, a community…

This description of the Erie Basic Educational Skills (BES) Program provides examples of the achievements made by the Erie Public Schools and Head Start toward BES and Responsive Educational Program goals. Staff positions, staff responsibilities, the curriculum, and programs initiated and carried out in the Erie Public Schools are described. The…