Towards a Differentiated, Holistic and Systemic Approach to Parental Involvement in Europe for Early School Leaving Prevention

This report seeks to inform and guide the short and medium term strategic planning of the 10 Urbact PREVENT city municipalities and all other municipalities, local authorities and schools across Europe with regard to Parental Involvement in Education for Early School Leaving Prevention. This review of Parental Involvement in Education for Early School Leaving Prevention in Europe is based on three interrelated aspects. Firstly, it involves an analysis of EU Commission and Council documents on early school leaving and social inclusion from the perspective of parental involvement in education. Secondly, it involves a dialogue and ongoing consultation process with the 10 municipalities engaged in the Urbact, PREVENT project with regard to key themes, practices and priorities in this area. Thirdly, it interrogates international research relevant to this area. Emerging from these aspects, a holistic, differentiated approach to parental involvement is taken. A holistic focus recognises the need to include family support within a parental involvement in education framework, bridging health and education domains, as part of a multidisciplinary focus on complex needs. A holistic approach recognises emotional and physical needs and not simply academic, cognitive ones of both children/young people and their parents in contexts of socio-economic exclusion. A differentiated strategy recognises parental roles and influences relevant to early school leaving at universal (all), selected (some – moderate risk) and indicated prevention (individual – high need) levels and the level of promotion of strengths and cultural identity. It further includes lifelong learning dimensions, especially concerning social cohesion and active citizenship. Developed by analogy with the UN right to health structural indicators, the framework being adopted in this report is that of identifying key structural indicators for a systemic strategic response. This report identifies the three areas of Outreach (community and individual family), Health and Democratic Systems in School as central to a holistic, differentiated and systemic focus on parental involvement in education, specifically for early school leaving prevention. An outreach approach to parental involvement for schools and municipalities requires active efforts to engage with groups, in contexts where they feel most comfortable, such as in their homes and local community based contexts. A key theme in this report in response to challenging issues of outreach and system fragmentation is to focus on development of centres, of accessible community based centres as a ‘one stop shop’ for family support, as well as centres for lifelong learning (both nonformal and formal). Major recommendations in the report are for a) community based family support centres, with multidisciplinary teams linked with preschools and schools, with a focus on child and parent mental health, emotional support and school attendance and b) community based lifelong learning centres, with both nonformal and formal education classes, targeting areas of highest social marginalization. Such community lifelong learning centres may also include the complementary approach of school building locations, as part of a strategy of opening the school up to the local community after school hours. Another major recommendation regarding promoting democratic systems of communication in schools recognises that municipalities are in an ideal position as a mediating space for dialogue between schools, parents and students. Such a dialogue, targeting schools especially in areas of high poverty, nonattendance and early school leaving, would include student surveys of their needs and school experiences, including open-ended questions and also focus groups of students and parents. It is recommended that municipalities develop a ‘Quality Mark for Democratic School Systems for Parents’ and Students’ Voices’ for participating 3 schools, as an incentive to participate in this process. The recommended process of dialogue to promote democratic systems in schools is not an expensive commitment and is central to a strategic commitment to parental involvement in schools. It is to include an EU Commission Quality Mark for Children and Young People’s Voices and Democratic Communication to be heard in school, together with a similar Quality Mark for Parental Involvement and Democratic Communication. A key system blockage highlighted by the PREVENT network is that of system fragmentation. This can take place where there is a diffusion of responsibility across different agencies in a municipality about who is the lead person responsible for organising a strategy of engagement with families and children experiencing social marginalisation. There is a need to go beyond a fragmented approach of endless referrals across services that are ‘passing on bits of the child’ (Edwards & Downes 2013) and family. This system fragmentation can also occur at a school level if there is not a key worker in the school with specific responsibility for parental involvement and for collaborating with the rest of the teachers and principal on this issue. Other key themes highlighted in the report include an active role for parents to intervene and be involved for overcoming sleep difficulties of pupils, alternatives to suspension/expulsion from school, bullying in school, first-language problems of pupils, family literacy outreach and for festivals to promote bridges between schools and local communities. Going beyond Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) systems approach to interrogate system blockage or displacement (Downes 2014), distinct kinds of system blockage for parental involvement can be seen to emerge and need to be firmly addressed through the identified recommended structural indicators to promote holistic, differentiated parental involvement for early school leaving at system levels. In doing so, a relational approach to engaging with parents from socio-economically excluded groups must always be kept to the fore.