Amanda McGuire

Family Partnership Plan

Why Partner?

Partnering with those individuals who have important roles in a child’s life is a major part

of my program. Involving families will strengthen Discovering Childhood in many ways. By

creating and maintaining strong and positive relationships with parents, the center increases the

likelihood of that family keeping their child enrolled. This reduces business risk and helps keep

the tuition income at a steadier rate. Parents who are involved with the program and the center

will also build relationships with staff members. When staff members feel like they have strong

relationships, they are happier at work and are more willing to put give their 100%. Ultimately,

our mission to provide an environment for children to discover their world. Most of a child’s

world is their home and their family. If we can help parents learn how to help their child explore,

we will be accomplishing our mission even outside of the center.

Benefits of Family Partnership

Children benefit greatly from having their family involved in their learning environment.

Children can demonstrate a sense of pride as they share something they enjoy with people they

love. Children can show their parents around to their favorite places and help them see what they

are learning. Parents and family members are the people that traditionally spend the most time

with a child and so when teachers and parents can work together, there is a more unified vision

of how to help the child progress developmentally.

Parents and family members also benefit from partnering with Discovering Childhood.

One of the biggest helps this program provides to parents is the protective factors of social

connections with other parents, knowledge of child development, and support of those staff

members in the program. Parents face many challenges including poverty, work schedules,
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substance abuse, and many others. Our program gives parents the chance to connect with other

parents, which can help them build a social network. The connections they build with other

parents and staff members give parents the chance to gain different perspectives on how to

handle the misbehaviors and situations their children present. We also provide an information

file box that will have many different resources including articles and brochures covering

different topics of child development. This box will also have the information for community

resources such as day cares, counseling centers, and other assistance that families may need.

Our program also benefits the community. We are teaching young children how to enjoy

and discover their world which will help them become involved citizens. We also work closely

with those programs and business that are meant to help strengthen families as a unit. Having

strong families is one of the best ways to help a community.

On-Site During Hours Involvement

We offer many options for parents and family members to be a part of our program. The

following options are offered on our site and during our hours of business. The type of volunteer

work during this time includes but is not limited to:

 Guest Teacher: We would love to have you share your talents with us and the

children! Let us know what your strengths and things you would be willing to

demonstrate are and we will find a way to work that in!

 Preparing and delivering snack

 Assisting us with paperwork and other clerical tasks

 Putting away materials

 Tidying up the office and building – this includes decorating if you enjoy that!

 Running and participating in parent and staff meetings

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 Fixing broken materials

 Helping to come up with ideas for new activities

 Help us to maintain our forest

 Just join us for a day

Home, After Hours, or Community Involvement

We understand that parent schedules may not allow them to come to our site during our

business hours. We also have opportunities for parents to help by:

 Supervising social media accounts

 Developing surveys

 Putting together newsletters

 Heading up toy drives, clothing drives, etc.

 Donating materials for our collection

Enlisting Parent Involvement

We use several methods to let parents know that we welcome and are looking forward to

working with them to support their child. Our program will have:

 Involvement bulletin board: Here we put descriptions of different opportunities of

when families can visit and volunteer. There will be specific details for the types

of activities we are looking for.

 A section on the application that asks for involvement preference.

 Staff members ask parents directly if they would be interested in volunteering or

assisting the program.

 Orientations for parents that have free food. At these meetings, the volunteer

opportunities will be presented.

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 Posts on social media inviting parents to come.

Sustaining Parent Involvement

Maintaining involvement with parents is just as important as enlisting. We know that

parent volunteers are sacrificing their time and energy to help our program and we want them to

know how much we appreciate that sacrifice. We will:

 Write detailed thank you notes to every parent volunteer. These notes will be sent

no later than two days after the parent volunteered.

 Enter each volunteer into a raffle to win small, fun prizes.

 Offer discounts on tuition rates for a certain number of hours volunteered.

 Host family activities such as barbecues to show our appreciation.

Documenting Family Partnership

Our program wants to record the times that we work with parents and families. We will

make sure to take pictures during the day that parents are working with us. We will ask the

parent if they would like a copy of these pictures. We also will use a sign in sheet. For parents

who volunteer in any way, we will give them a quick feedback sheet about their experience. On

this sheet we will ask them what things they enjoyed and what things we as a program or as staff

members could do to make it a more beneficial experience. These feedback sheets will be

entered into a spreadsheet based on the comments and kept for six months. After that, they will

be scanned into an online system and shredded.