Increasing Parental Engagement in School-Based Interventions Using Team Engagement and Motivation Methods

Abstract

It is clear from extensive research that when families are involved in their children's education, children do better in both the short and long terms. Unfortunately, families are not routinely involved in the planning and implementation of behavior support teams. Caregiver decisions about involvement in and ability to participate in their child's education are determined by a complex interplay of personal and situational variables, including historical and contextual factors that make schools unwelcoming to many parents. Singular interventions (e.g., homeschool notes) without contextualization are unlikely to impact the caregivers with the greatest barriers to participation. In this chapter, we describe our team engagement and motivation (TEAM) model which focuses on enhancements to traditional behavior support and educational planning teams to bolster active engagement by caregivers (any adult involved in direct care of the child) and school personnel in planning supports for students with emotional behavioral disabilities (EBDs). The complexity of presentations of youth with EBDs, including their families' cultural, perceptual, and socioeconomic circumstances, requires an integrated and planful approach to intervention development, implementation, and monitoring. We also describe the process by which behavior support teams can be created and trained to build contextually relevant interventions that address the multitude of service access barriers, including structural, perceptual (including staff and parent negative perceptions and reputations), and technical (conducting FBAs and function-driven BSPs). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)