50 Strategies for Communicating and Working with Diverse Families » (2nd Edition)

Janet Gonzalez-Mena taught in the California university and community college systems for 35 years. She was on the full-time faculty at Napa Valley College in the Child and Family Studies Department for 15 years until her retirement. Janet started her early childhood career in a cooperative preschool as a parent volunteer back in 1966. She became a preschool teacher and taught in three types of programs including Head Start, a program for Spanish-speaking children and their families and a home-based preschool program. Later she became a director of child care programs and helped open several pilot projects including a therapeutic child care program and an infant-center.

Besides preschool, Janet’s special interests include working with parents, diversity, family child care, and infants. In the 1970’s she studied with Magda Gerber, an infant expert from Hungary. Recently she has studied at the Pikler Institute in Budapest where Magda came from. Janet has written 4 ECE textbooks, plus a book on diversity and 2 parenting books, including a humorous one that is called Dragon Mom. Presently Janet is involved in helping create a training project called “Strengthening Family and Professional Partnerships” with the National Association for the Education of Young Children. In 2002 she co-authored Bridging Cultures in ECE, a training manual, also for WestEd. She has been on the faculty of WestEd’s Program for Infant-Toddler Care training of trainer institutes since 1991. Since 1998 she has been on the faculty of Beginning Together, another training of trainer institute for helping professionals learn to include children with special needs in early care and education programs.

Janet lives in a multicultural family in a state where there is no longer a majority culture. In California, everyone now is a minority. Janet earned a B.A. in English from University of California, Davis (1959) and a M.A. in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College (1976).

50 Early Childhood Strategies for Working and Communicating with Diverse Families is a practical and easy to use book. It presents key concepts, discusses them in research-based, accessible prose, and provides useful strategies to facilitate communication and collaboration. The book focuses on family-centered care and education for young children and emphasizes partnering with families. Many of the strategies in this book address ideas about how to create a climate of trust by communicating in a collaborative way. The goal is to create inclusive programs that respect and honor differences in families and individuals. Teachers will love the fifty short chapters with information they can apply immediately. At the heart of all these strategies lies the welfare of the child.

FEATURES:

• Emphasizes the importance of partnerships between teachers and family members.Stresses the integral components of communication between diverse families and teachers or administrators.

• Raises the important issue of respecting the various diversities and cultures that exist in today's classrooms.
• Reader-friendly writing style and the alphabetic arrangement of the strategies-interesting, understandable, and easy to find what the student or teacher is looking for.
• Interwoven, cross-referenced strategies-integrity throughout the book as the relationships between the strategies are highlighted; one strategy often mentions several other strategies that pertain to the same subject.
• Broad coverage: spans ages 0-8 in a variety of different care and education settings-applies to early childhood educators at all levels-not exclusive to Pre-K; also includes child care, but not exclusively.
• Goes beyond mere parent involvement and education-closely examines how a partnership may include both, but is different from the more common approaches early childhood educators often take to working with parents; promotes a family-centered approach instead of a child-centered one that is common practice.
• Photos and artifacts illustrate the messages-these visual images are designed to help readers grasp information and enliven the book.

New to this Edition!

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SECTION 1 Welcoming Everybody

1 Appreciating all Kinds of Families

2 Working with Immigrant Families

3 Including Families of Children with Special Needs

4 Creating an Anti-bias Environment

5 Respecting all Families including those with Same Sex Parents

SECTION 2 Partnerships with Families

6 Building Partnerships

7 RemovingBarriers to Partnerships

8 Minimizing Competition with Parents

9 Supporting Attachment

10 Considering Authority

11 Focusing on Family Strengths

12 Helping Parents to be Advocates for their Children

13 Encouraging Parents to Become Advocates for all Children

14 Creating a Sense of Community

SECTION 3 Honoring and Working with Diversity

15 Understanding and Appreciating Cultural Differences

16 Establishing Culturally Responsive Education and Care

17 Working with conflicts around Education and Care Practices

18 Considering Cultural Differences in Guidance and Discipline

19 Working with Families around what You Believe are Harmful Practices

20 Thinking about Differing Ideas Related to How Children Learn

21 Managing Conflicts

SECTION 4 Family Participation and Education

22 Considering Family Participation

23 Including Parents in the Classroom or Center

24 Focusing on Fathers

25 Taking a Transformative Approach to Parent Education

26 Working with Parents around Holiday Issues

27 Exploring Parents’ Role on Decision-Making Boards and Councils

SECTION 5 Communication

28 Creating Environments for Communication

29 Empowering Self and Others

30 Communicating through Writing

31 Holding Ongoing Conversations with Families

32 Looking at Nonverbal Communication across Cultures

SECTION 6 Meetings and Conferences

33 Meeting Families for the First Time

34 Thinking about Meetings in General

35 Holding Conferences

36 Considering Cross Cultural Conferences

37 Talking with Families when Concerns Arise

SECTION 7 Working with Parents around Specific Issues

38 Helping the Child Enter the School or Program

39 Maintaining Home Language

40 Easing Children through Transitions

41 Bringing Nature into Children’s Lives

42 Addressing Obesity with Nutrition

43 Dealing with Media Issues

44 Maintaining Stability During Divorce

45 Coping with a Death in the Family

46 Finding Community Resources and making Referrals

SECTION 8 Challenging Conversations

47 Working with Parents who Constantly Complain

48 Working with Parents who Appear Hostile

49 Talking with Parents about Behavior Changes

50 Referring Families for Abuse or Neglect

References

Index

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