Family and Community
At a Glance | Services | Significant Work | Products
Examples of Significant Work
National Center for Family and Community Connections With Schools: SEDL’s National Center for Family and Community Connections With Schools disseminates research-based information and resources to foster connections among families, communities, and schools with the goal of improving student academic achievement.
National PIRC Coordination Center: Through September 2011, the National PIRC Coordination Center, a partnership of SEDL, the Harvard Family Research Project, and the Miko Group, Inc., supported the work of the nation’s 62 Parental Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs) by providing training events, research-based materials, new grantee orientation, on-site visits, and regional and national conferences.
Past Work
Bright Futures Early Reading First Project: SEDL worked with the Madison Parish Public Schools and the Delta Community Action Association-Tallulah Head Start on the Bright Futures Early Reading First project to develop, test, and refine strategies for creating family-friendly preschools that support language and literacy development. The project involved 250 preschoolers from low-income families in Tallulah, Louisiana. SEDL staff worked to increase parental involvement in children's language development and provided training on research-based literacy instruction for young children. In addition, SEDL researchers conducted a quasi-experimental study to evaluate the project's effectiveness. Significant gains were found for children’s receptive vocabulary, letter recognition, and print awareness skills, and instructors showed significant increases in their literacy and language knowledge.
National Institute for Literacy Dissemination Project: SEDL helped the National Institute for Literacy get its free booklets, which provide parents with tips for developing children’s early reading skills, into the hands of parents nationwide.
Collaborative Action Teams: SEDL staff evaluated and refined the process for creating Collaborative Action Teams, which worked to develop partnerships among students, families, communities, and schools at the local level. These teams identified pressing issues in a community and took action to address them.
Supporting Family Involvement in Education: In the 1980s, SEDL provided guidance and tools to assist businesses, schools, and communities in helping working mothers be more involved in their children’s education. We also conducted field-based research on building successful school-family-community partnerships, particularly in lower-income and minority communities.
Family and Community Research Studies: In the 1970s, SEDL undertook three projects that sought to study and improve relationships among schools, families, and communities. The most significant was a groundbreaking 6-year study examining the beliefs and attitudes about parent involvement in children’s elementary education. The results revealed that educators supported more traditional roles for parent involvement, whereas parents supported more active roles such as school advocate.
