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Home > Family-Centered Practice > Family-Centered Casework Practice > Working With Families & Youth > Family Engagement & Involvement
Family Engagement & Involvement
Family engagement is a prerequisite for helping the family achieve its goals. Key elements include:
- Listening to each family member
- Demonstrating respect and empathy for family members
- Developing an understanding of the family's past experiences, current situation, concerns, and strengths
- Responding to concrete needs quickly
- Establishing the purpose of involvement with the family
- Being aware of one's own biases and prejudices
- Validating the participatory role of the family
- Being consistent, reliable, and honest
- Engaging & involving fathers and paternal family members
Engaging Families in Child Welfare Services: An Evidence-Based Approach to Best Practice
Dawson & Berry
Child Welfare, 81(2), 2002
View Abstract
Review of the empirical literature that delineates critical components of engagement in child welfare services. Effective engagement strategies include client collaboration, supportive home-based interventions, skill building, broad-based case management with concrete resources, and parental involvement in children's therapy.
Engagement in Children, Youth, and Family Services: Current Research and Promising Approaches
Altman (2005)
In Child Welfare for the Twenty-First Century: A Handbook of Practices, Policies, and Programs
View Abstract
Reviews contemporary knowledge of engagement in child welfare services and offers the findings of research to guide practice.
Evidence-Based Best Practices in the Engagement of Families
Berry (2001)
View Abstract
Synthesizes research from the empirical literature on engagement strategies and work with involuntary child welfare clients in the United States, to identify practices in child welfare casework that are associated with positive outcomes for children and families.
Learning From Families: Identifying Service Strategies for Success (PDF - 479 KB)
Worthington, Hernandez, Friedman, & Uzzell
Systems of Care: Promising Practices in Children's Mental Health, 2001 Series
Explores successful practices in providing effective, coordinated care to children with a serious emotional disturbance and their families. The information was gathered by visiting sites, holding focus groups, collecting data in the national program evaluation involving all grantees, and interviewing numerous professionals and parents.
Parental Involvement Tool Kit (PDF - 453 KB)
Philadelphia Health Management Corporation (2003)
Includes five modules geared toward program planners and administrators interested in starting parental involvement programs or adding parental involvement components to existing youth-serving programs.
Relationship Between Public Child Welfare Workers, Resource Families and Birth Families: Preventing the Triangulation of the Triangle of Support (PDF - 689 KB)
Lutz (2005)
Describes a model of technical assistance called facilitated dialogue that brings social workers, resource families, and birth families together to explore their roles and strategies for cooperation.
Working With Families Right From the Start
Massachusetts Department of Social Services
Resources and publications on this project aimed at improving the department's engagement and involvement with families.
Working With Resistant Families
Missouri Department of Social Services (2007)
In Child Welfare Manual
Examines skills needed to effectively work with clients who may be resistant to treatment and to prevent the potential for violence, including information on interviewing techniques for establishing a relationship.
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