Moving towards Meaningful and Significant Family Partnerships in Education

Partnerships with families in education settings should emphasize their roles as active and engaged co-equal partners. However, common practices in schools are to involve families at school-based events and share information with them about their child's education in a manner that does not promote two-way interactions. The purpose of this paper is to describe relevant background on family-school connections; approaches to promote academic performance and mental and behavioral health; and a framework to organize family partnerships that supports all youth across a continuum of support intensity. A theory of change is presented that depicts the impact of family partnerships on proximal and distal outcomes. Future directions for investigating effective approaches for family partnerships are described. [This paper was published in "Adolescent Psychiatry" v10 n2 p110-122 2020.]