FamilyCare Partnerships Tackle Barriers to Student Learning

For more than 10 years, the Los Angeles Educational Partnership's FamilyCare program has been a catalyst for innovative and collaborative programs that support improved student learning in disadvantaged communities throughout Los Angeles.

"FamilyCare programs involve parents in the education of their children, capitalize on the strengths of their community, build bridges between communities and schools and address the early childhood needs of young children," said FamilyCare Director Helen Kleinberg.

By providing technical assistance and using existing relationships with agencies, FamilyCare has helped schools create partnerships with one another, with parents and with agencies to eliminate barriers to student learning.

FamilyCare began its work in Pacoima in 1990, an economically underdeveloped community located in the northeast corner of Los Angeles. Predominately populated by Latinos and African-Americans, this "working class" community became the focus of a reform movement in the early 1990s that brought social services to the Vaughn Elementary School campus and involved parents in the their children's education in a more meaningful way.

Under the direction of FamilyCare and in cooperation with the school, an independent Family Center was established at Vaughn with funding provided by the state Healthy Start program and foundation grants.

During the past decade, FamilyCare has moved from intensive work at Vaughn to establishing complex collaboratives with many schools and partner agencies. FamilyCare has helped to design, plan and implement operational grants for four Healthy Start collaboratives across 11 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District's San Fernando High School Cluster. FamilyCare's initiatives focus predominately, but not exclusively, on the 18 schools of the San Fernando Cluster.

At the forefront of FamilyCare is its School Readiness Program which offers fun, creative, and inexpensive ways for families to enjoy learning through games and activities that prepare young children for school. Parents can help their children develop healthy minds and bodies by talking, sharing, and doing activities together. A related program is Partners, in which middle and elementary school children with behavioral difficulties spend the evening with their parents and eight to 10 other families working on improving communications skills under the supervision of family counselors.

"School Readiness paraprofessionals from the community bring new and exciting activities into children's homes and share how these activities can help children become readers and thinkers who are ready for school," said FamilyCare Manager Amy Rice.

FamilyCare supports student achievement and family literacy by engaging parents from all literacy levels in the Family Album Writing Workshop in which they write about their own experiences and engage parents throughout FamilyCare activities to train others.

At the school site, FamilyCare's Connections program, a component of the Project GRAD school reform initiative, provides individual assistance for students, links students to resources for academic enrichment and tutoring, encourages family support and promotes high academic achievement for elementary and middle school students.

"Recognizing the vital role that parent leaders play in school communities, FamilyCare staff will continue to explore programs that provide training and support to Parent Center leaders and integrate parents in their child's education," Rice said.

	Related Links During the next few weeks, the Learning Exchange will feature articles on various FamilyCare programs that are helping children and their families succeed in and out of the classroom.

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