Family Engagement Strategies Research Articles

Correction: Reciprocal Family Engagement Strategies in U.S. Early Childhood Systems: A Qualitative Study

Correction: Reciprocal Family Engagement Strategies in U.S. Early Childhood Systems: A Qualitative Study

Reciprocal Family Engagement Strategies in U.S. Early Childhood Systems: A Qualitative Study

Reciprocal Family Engagement Strategies in U.S. Early Childhood Systems: A Qualitative Study

“We are not able to speak English, so we don't know what is happening:” Missed opportunities for families' engagement in their children's learning

Drawing from equity and plurilingual lenses, this qualitative research explores opportunities for parents from Language Backgrounds other than English (LBOTE) to engage in their children's school learning. Twenty-six Vietnamese and Burmese parents from two Australian primary (elementary) schools were interviewed. Three family engagement strategies, 1) open communication between teachers and families 2) homework/home learning 3) student conversations with their families about school learning were pertinent, and at times, problematic according to the parents. Implications from the study are how to find equitable and inclusive ways for teachers and schools to engage families with LBOTE in their children's learning.

Educator wellbeing and family engagement in Australian early learning settings: perspectives of early childhood educators and families

AbstractWhile the COVID-19 pandemic brought with it multiple challenges for families and the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) workforce, it also highlighted the essential role of ECEC in the lives of children and families and presented unique opportunities for innovation and learning. The current study sought to explore learnings from this uniquely challenging period, including the factors and strategies that best supported educator wellbeing and family engagement in ECEC settings, from the perspectives of families, centre directors and educators. In 2021, 104 Centre Directors/Educators and 102 families completed online surveys exploring wellbeing and educator–family relationships. Correlations suggest that robust professional wellbeing and resilience are potential enabling factors for strong family engagement, and that supportive organisational structures in ECEC settings are a protective factor for both educator wellbeing and family engagement. In addition, five effective family engagement strategies were derived from the qualitative data: (1) drawing on personal and professional knowledges to enrich children’s learning at home; (2) prioritising regular and reliable communication with families; (3) maintaining familiar relationships and a sense of community; (4) providing person-centred support and a bridge to other services; and (5) nurturing mutually supportive educator–family relationships. Learnings provide important insights that may inform ongoing quality improvements across different ECEC contexts, and to help safeguard against the negative impacts of future global crises.

Virtual Patient and Family Engagement Strategies in Critical Care: A Scoping Review.

Background: Family engagement in care is increasingly recognized as an essential component of optimal critical care delivery. However, family engagement strategies have traditionally involved in-person family participation. Virtual approaches to family engagement may overcome barriers to family participation in care. The objective of this study was to perform a scoping review of virtual family engagement strategies in the intensive care unit (ICU). Methods: Studies were included if they involved a virtual engagement strategy with family members of an ICU patient and reported either (1) outcomes, (2) user perspectives, and/or (3) barriers or facilitators to virtual engagement in the ICU. Study types included primary research studies and review articles. Study selection followed the Joanna Briggs Institute Methodology for Scoping Reviews guidelines without any cultural, ethnic, gender, or specific language restrictions. The source of evidence included Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library databases from inception to November 17, 2023. Google scholar was searched on December 1, 2023. Data were extracted on virtual engagement strategy used, outcomes (patient-centered, family-centered, and clinical), perspectives (patient, family, and health care professional [HCP]), and reported barriers or facilitators to virtual engagement in the ICU. Results were categorized into adult or pediatric/neonatal ICU setting. Results: Virtual engagement strategies identified were virtual visitation, virtual rounding, and virtual meetings. Family and HCPs were generally supportive of virtual visitation and rounding strategies. Overall, virtual strategies were associated with improved patient, family, and HCP outcomes. There were a few randomized interventional studies evaluating the effectiveness of virtual engagement strategies. Family, HCP, technological, and institutional barriers to the implementation and conduct of virtual engagement strategies were reported. Conclusions: Virtual family engagement strategies are associated with improved outcomes for patients, family, and HCPs. Identified barriers to virtual family engagement should be addressed. Future studies are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual family engagement strategies in a more rigorous manner.

Enhancing dual language learners’ language learning through parent–teacher partnerships

Families of dual language learners (DLLs) and their linguistic resources play a crucial role in fostering children’s language development. However, there is still a dearth of empirical studies investigating whether bilingual teachers view the families of DLLs and their language resources as assets, and how they implement family engagement practices to leverage these language assets in teaching DLLs. This study examined the family engagement perspectives and practices of five bilingual teachers in New York City (NYC) early childhood classrooms. Qualitative data were collected using online questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that bilingual teachers hold a strength-based view of DLLs’ parents and their language resources to support their children’s language learning. Controversially, they demonstrated a mixture of deficit- and strength-based approaches to parental engagement, ranging from educating parents about English homework strategies to arranging classroom events in which parents could highlight their home language practices. Concurrently, teachers were fully aware of the importance of DLLs’ home linguistic resources in supporting students’ language learning, yet they maintained instructional practices that kept DLLs’ home and school language repertoires separate. The implications for fostering strength-based perspectives on DLL families and strength-based DLL family engagement strategies are discussed.

Decreasing the incidence of delirium via multi-sensory stimulation in patients receiving mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit: A protocol for a randomized feasibility study

IntroductionDelirium is a common acute brain dysfunction syndrome in patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs). Family engagement strategies, based on the theory of multi-sensory stimulation to ameliorate sensory deprivation in patients, may be an effective and scalable method to reduce the burden of delirium. Methods/design: This is a assessor-blinded, randomised controlled trial of the feasibility of multi-sensory stimulation (MS) in patients with delirium. A total of 72 mechanically ventilated patients (n = 24 in each group) admitted to the ICU will be randomised to routine non-pharmacological delirium care (control), family multi-sensory stimulation and nurse multi-sensory stimulation groups. All participants except the control group will receive multi-sensory stimulation, including visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic stimulation, for 5 days. Our primary aim is to determine the feasibility of the study procedure (recruitment, eligibility, retention and attrition rates, appropriateness of clinical outcome measures), feasibility, acceptability and safety of the intervention (adverse events, satisfaction and other). Our secondary objective is to assess the preliminary efficacy of the MS protocol in reducing the incidence, duration and severity of delirium. Sedation levels and delirium severity will be assessed twice daily. Enrolled participants will be followed in hospital until death, discharge or up to 28 days after treatment. Ethics and disseminationThe current study was approved by the Ethics Review Board of Huazhong University of Science and Technology Union Shenzhen Hospital, China (KY-2023-031-01). The results of this study will be presented at scientific conferences and submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Trial registration numberChiCTR2300071457.

Look to the past to improve our future: Improving quality, safety and equity through community and patient engagement

Healthcare administrators must ensure delivery of care that is high quality, safe and produces equitable outcomes while balancing business, workforce and community needs. To meet these challenges while guiding their organisations through COVID-19 recovery, administrators can look to a strategy with a strong track record for success: engaging patients, families and communities. This paper focuses on evidence, experience and best practices for improving quality, safety and equity by engaging people, patients, families and communities. Effective patient and family engagement (PFE) and community engagement strategies draw on research and experience across a wide variety of efforts, from nationwide federal programmes such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Partnership for Patients initiative to health system- and neighbourhood-level programmes. Research demonstrates that commitment to PFE leads to measurable improvements in quality and safety. Experience shows that engagement, when practiced with attention to diversity, equity and inclusion, can reduce health disparities. Engagement best practices include: making engagement a strategic priority, embedding patients and families with diverse perspectives into improvement efforts, supporting continuous learning by adapting engagement efforts over time, benchmarking progress and measuring disparities. To continue the advances begun before the pandemic, healthcare administrators and leaders must redouble engagement efforts and implement best practices. Administrators can meet the many challenges of the moment by returning to the proven strategy of engaging patients, families and communities to drive integrated quality, safety and equity efforts.

Family Perspectives of University Reading Clinic/Literacy Lab Experiences: What Matters

Family partnerships should be a central component of teacher preparation. Although research provides family engagement strategies, little research offers teacher educators guidance from the perspectives of families themselves. The purpose of this convergent mixed-method study was to begin to fill the void in the literature by investigating family perspectives of theirs and their children’s experience in 10 reading clinic/literacy lab literacy specialist preparation programs across the United States and Canada. Through analysis of survey ratings ( N = 132) and responses to structured interviews to ( N = 84), this study found that families valued clinic/lab tutors building relationships with them, responding to their children’s strengths and needs, promoting self-efficacy, and working together as partners. Methods used in this study can provide a useful model for how teacher educators can intentionally seek input from families. Findings have implications for teacher educators advocating for and centering family engagement in teacher preparation.

Holistic nursing can improve family engagement.

Family engagement is relevant to patient outcomes and ensures patient efficacy, support, and quality of life. Such engagement is facilitated by holistic nursing methods. This article discusses the importance of and barriers to family engagement and practical strategies for its implementation.

Making Meaningful Connections: Facilitating Schoolwide Family Engagement With Culturally Diverse Families

The importance of strong family partnerships has long been considered essential to supporting the success of student with exceptionalities. Research indicates that building school-wide relationships with culturally and linguistically diverse families continues to prove challenges for administrators and other school personnel (Fowler, Coleman, Bogdan, 2019). The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) both emphasize the critical importance of family engagement. Due to the national professional standards which undergird special education teacher preparation programs, special educators are uniquely positioned to enhance school-wide family engagement strategies. The focus of this practitioner-based manuscript is to provide building-level school administrators with planning tools to implement culturally responsive family-engagement for families of children with disabilities.

Family Engagement: Developing Relationship-Rich Partnerships With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families to Improve Students’ Long-Term Life Outcomes

In addition to the demographic disparities between educators and students, many preservice general and special education teachers report limited exposure to students from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds and perceive themselves as ill prepared to address the learning needs of diverse populations of students with and without disabilities. This article provides a pragmatic illustration of how school leadership can build relationship-rich partnerships with families using the four fundamental high-impact family and community engagement strategies (relationships and trust, communication, culture and diversity, and collaboration and partnerships) identified by Hernandez (2020). Actionable steps and examples are offered for facilitating effective collaboration with culturally and linguistically diverse families and those of students with special needs to improve student learning outcomes.

Characteristics of High Versus Low-Performing Hospitals for Very Preterm Infant Morbidity and Mortality

To ascertain organizational attributes, policies, and practices that differentiate hospitals with high versus low risk-adjusted rates of very preterm neonatal morbidity and mortality (NMM). Using a positive deviance research framework, we conducted qualitative interviews of hospital leadership and frontline clinicians from September-October 2018 in 4 high-performing and 4 low-performing hospitals in New York City, based on NMM measured in previous research. Key interview topics included NICU physician and nurse staffing, professional development, standardization of care, quality measurement and improvement, and efforts to measure and report on racial/ethnic disparities in care and outcomes for very preterm infants. Interviews were audiotaped, professionally transcribed, and coded using NVivo software. In qualitative content analysis, researchers blinded to hospital performance identified emergent themes, highlighted illustrative quotes, and drew qualitative comparisons between hospital clusters. The following features distinguished high-performing facilities: 1) stronger commitment from hospital leadership to diversity, quality, and equity; 2) better access to specialist physicians and experienced nursing staff; 3) inclusion of nurses in developing clinical policies and protocols, and 4) acknowledgement of the influence of racism and bias in healthcare on racial-ethnic disparities. In both clusters, areas for improvement included comprehensive family engagement strategies, care standardization, and reporting of quality data by patient sociodemographic characteristics. Our findings suggest specific organizational and cultural characteristics, from hospital leadership and clinician perspectives, that may yield better patient outcomes, and demonstrate the utility of a positive deviance framework to center equity in quality initiatives for high-risk infant care.

Equity-Minded Community Involvement and Family Engagement Strategies for Health and Physical Educators

Within the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model, community involvement and family engagement are distinct, yet highly connected components. According to the model, communities and families play a vital role in the learning, development and health of children and young people, with “community” being placed as an additional wrap-around concept within each of the individual WSCC components reflecting its importance. Community involvement suggests that partnerships can be created with schools to share resources and by providing volunteers who can support student learning and health-related activities. Family engagement requires that collaboration exists between families and school staff to benefit student learning, development and health. This article will describe equity-minded strategies for health and physical educators to consider when implementing community involvement and family engagement. Specific considerations for physical education teacher education (PETE) and health education teacher education (HETE) programs are also provided. Additionally, some stakeholder engagement strategies are presented and ideas of how to involve community and to engage families in a school garden project are illustrated as a case study.

Toward an Integrated, Systemic, and Sustainable Model of Transformational Family Engagement: The Case of the Kentucky Statewide Family Engagement Center

Transformational family engagement fundamentally changes relationships between families and schools and interrupts deeply held beliefs about low-income, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, or immigrant families, each of which are rooted in systems of racism, classism, sexism, xenophobia, and their intersections. In this paper, we use a community-based collective impact theoretical framework to better understand how the KY Collaborative is aligned with transformational family engagement strategies and promotes and implements systemic, statewide evidenced-based family engagement policies and practices. We present data from interviews with KY Collaborative partners, observations of KY Collaborative events and activities, and survey data. Key findings suggest the KY Collaborative leverages each regional partner’s strengths to break through historical barriers that fail to acknowledge the critical role families play both within and outside of schools. Their collective programs and services demonstrate a commitment to strengthening families, building capacity amongst schools and educators, and supporting communities to achieve educational equity. Our findings present implications for other statewide family engagement centers and community-based collaborations for transformational family engagement by highlighting the ways in which the KY Collaborative develops bottom-up leadership, builds dual capacity, shifts power, attends to policy change, and diffuses shared messages, visions, and practices statewide.

Filmando Interacciones Para Nutrir El Desarrollo: A Randomized Pilot of A Strength-Based Video Coaching Program with Mexican American Fathers

ABSTRACT Research Finding: Traditional fathering programs have missed an opportunity to reflect the unique family patterns and service needs of Hispanic and Latino fathers. In addition, family engagement strategies in early childhood programs have typically focused on mothers. The aim of this study was to adapt, implement, and evaluate a 6-week video coaching program, Filmando Interacciones para Nutrir el Desarrollo (FINDFM; Filming Interactions to Nurture Development) with Mexican American fathers and their young children (n= 33). FINDFM was delivered through home visits, promoted warm and responsive father-child interactions, and used video to emphasize each father’s parenting strengths in the context of everyday caretaking moments. Utilizing a randomized waitlist control design, we found that fathers who received FINDFM had higher levels of encouragement, lower levels of parenting stress, higher levels of identity dedicated to the fathering role, and reported lower levels of children’s behavior problems at posttest relative to the control group. Further, there was a moderately strong relationship between increases in fathers’ encouragement and reported decreases in children’s behavior problems, which supports a central pathway in FINDFM’s theory of change. Practice or Policy: FINDFM offers a promising approach to leverage existing early childhood home visiting services to better meet Mexican American fathers’ needs.

"Let's Chat": process evaluation of an intergenerational group chat intervention to increase cancer prevention screening among Vietnamese American families.

Vietnamese Americans have a higher rate of cervical and colorectal cancer (CRC) compared to other ethnicities. Increasing CRC screening, Pap testing, and HPV vaccination is critical to preventing disproportionate cancer burden among Vietnamese families. To describe the successes and challenges of implementing a novel intergenerational family group chat intervention that encourages CRC screening, Pap testing, and HPV vaccination. Young adult Family Health Advocates (FHAs) were trained to facilitate online family group chat conversations to encourage cancer screenings. Ten families participated in a 4-week intervention. Data collection included screenshot data of family group chat conversations, family member surveys, and post-intervention FHA interviews. Intervention implementation successes included (a) cultural and language brokering, (b) active co-facilitation by family members to follow up on cancer screenings, (c) high levels of family group chat engagement, (d) high acceptability of intervention among families, and (e) accessibility of intervention curriculum. FHA challenges to implement the intervention included (a) sustaining cancer prevention conversations, (b) comfort with navigating family conversations around cancer screening, (c) relevance for all family members, and (d) missed opportunities for correcting misinformation. Researcher challenges included family recruitment and retention. The intervention made cancer-screening messages more accessible and was well accepted by Vietnamese families. Scaling up the intervention will require (a) training FHAs to monitor family conversations and build confidence in sharing medical accurate messages, (b) segmenting group chats by age and gender, and (c) employing multiple family engagement strategies.

Child/youth, family and public engagement in paediatric services in high-income countries: A systematic scoping review.

BackgroundPatient and public engagement in paediatric health‐care decision making is under‐researched, and there is a lack of systematically reviewed literature in this area.ObjectiveTo examine the extent, range and nature of published research investigating the engagement of children/youth, families and the public in paediatric service improvement, to summarize key aspects of the research identified and to identify gaps to help inform future research needs.MethodsLiterature was sought in MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINAHL. Eligible articles presented research focused on patient, family and public engagement strategies in the paediatric health‐care setting. Two reviewers extracted and charted data and analysed findings using a descriptive numerical summary analysis and a thematic analysis.ResultsFrom 4331 articles, 21 were eligible. Most were from the United States. The majority of studies were undertaken in hospital settings and used quantitative methods. Various patient and public engagement strategies/interventions were examined, including shared decision‐making tools, questionnaires, youth councils/family advisory groups, patient portals and online networks. Most of the studies examined child/youth/parent satisfaction, with fewer investigating treatment outcomes or service improvement. The majority of studies investigated an engagement strategy at the ‘individual treatment’ level of engagement. Regarding the continuum of engagement, most of the studies were at either the ‘consultation’ or ‘involvement’ stage.ConclusionFuture research needs to focus on the investigation of engagement strategies delivered in primary care, and the use of more qualitative and mixed methods approaches is recommended. There is a gap in the area of engagement strategies directed towards ‘service design and resources’ and ‘macro/policy’ levels.

Using Patient and Family Engagement Strategies to Improve Outcomes of Health Information Technology Initiatives: Scoping Review.

BackgroundMany health care organizations around the world have implemented health information technologies (ITs) to enhance health service efficiency, effectiveness, and safety. Studies have demonstrated that promising outcomes of health IT initiatives can be obtained when patients and family members participate and engage in the adoption, use, and evaluation of these technologies. Despite knowing this, there is a lack of health care organizations using patient and family engagement strategies to enhance the use and adoption of health ITs, specifically.ObjectiveThis study aimed to answer the following three research questions (RQs): (1) what current frameworks or theories have been used to guide patient and family engagement in health IT adoption, use, implementation, selection, and evaluation?, (2) what studies have been done on patient and family engagement strategies in health IT adoption, use, implementation, selection, and evaluation?, and (3) what patient and family engagement frameworks, studies, or resources identified in the literature can be applied to health IT adoption, use, implementation, selection, and evaluation?MethodsThis scoping review used a five-step framework developed by Arksey and O’Malley and adapted by Levac et al. These steps include the following: (1) identifying the RQ, (2) identifying relevant studies, (3) selecting studies, (4) charting relevant data, and (5) summarizing and reporting the result. Retrieved academic and grey literature records were evaluated using a literature review software based on inclusion and exclusion criteria by two independent reviewers. If consensus was not achieved, two reviewers would resolve conflicts by discussion. Research findings and strategies were extracted from the studies and summarized in data tables.ResultsA total of 35 academic articles and 23 gray literature documents met the inclusion criteria. In total, 20 of the 35 included studies have been published since 2017. Frameworks found include the patient engagement framework developed by Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the patient and family engagement framework proposed by Carman et al. Effective strategies include providing patients with clear expectations and responsibilities and providing reimbursement for time and travel. The gray literature sources outlined key considerations for planning and supporting engagement initiatives such as providing patients with professional development opportunities, and embedding patients in existing governance structures.ConclusionsSeveral studies have reported their findings regarding successful strategies to engage patients and family members in health IT initiatives and the positive impact that can emerge when patients and family members are engaged in such initiatives in an effective manner. Currently, no framework has consolidated all of the key strategies and considerations that were found in this review to guide health care organizations when engaging patients and family members in a health IT–specific project or initiative. Further research to evaluate and validate the existing strategies would be of value.

Medicaid and CHIP Child Health Beneficiary Incentives: Program Landscape and Stakeholder Insights.

To describe the landscape of Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program beneficiary incentive programs for child health and garner key stakeholder insights on incentive program rationale, child and family engagement, and program evaluation. We identified beneficiary health incentive programs from 2005 to 2018 through a search of peer-reviewed and publicly available documents and through semistructured interviews with 80 key stakeholders (Medicaid and managed-care leadership, program evaluators, patient advocates, etc). This study highlights insights from 23 of these stakeholders with expertise on programs targeting child health (<18 years old) to understand program rationale, beneficiary engagement, and program evaluation. We identified 82 child health-targeted beneficiary incentive programs in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. Programs most commonly incentivized well-child checks (n = 77), preventive screenings (n = 30), and chronic disease management (n = 30). All programs included financial incentives (eg, gift cards, premium incentives); some also offered incentive material prizes (n = 12; eg, car seats). Loss-framed incentives were uncommon (n = 1; eg, lost benefits) and strongly discouraged by stakeholders. Stakeholders suggested family engagement strategies including multigenerational incentives or incentives addressing social determinants of health. Regarding evaluation, stakeholders suggested incentivizing evidence-based preventive services (eg, vaccinations) rather than well-child check attendance, and considering proximal measures of child well-being (eg, school functioning). As the landscape of beneficiary incentive programs for child health evolves, policy makers have unique opportunities to leverage intergenerational and social approaches for family engagement and to more effectively increase and evaluate programs' impact.