Universal Family Engagement Defined
Universal Family Engagement is the practice of improving outcomes for all students by fostering effective partnerships between schools and families. Universal Family Engagement includes a focus on removing barriers to both in-person and digital engagement with all families, including barriers related to capacity, mindset/confidence, culture, language, technology, and time. To be successful, educators must build trusting relationships with families through consistent, positive, asset-based interactions, where they capitalize on families as the student’s first teacher, strongest advocate, and student expert. To make these partnerships genuinely effective, the focus must be placed on building the capacity of both families and educators.
Schools that harness the superpower of effective family partnerships can significantly accelerate the impact of their efforts to improve student learning and development.
The four tenets of Universal Family Engagement
To be effective, family engagement practices need to adhere to four foundational tenets:
Purposeful – guided by research-based best practices with an intentional focus on improving student outcomes and embedded as a strategy in a school system’s outcome-focused initiatives.
Inclusive – built with universal design principles to ensure access for all families, especially those who are hardest to reach and underserved, by addressing and overcoming barriers.
Enduring – focused on deepening mutual trust, building teacher and family capacity, and strengthening school culture through sustained and reliable engagement across teachers, staff, and schools.
Responsive – adaptive to evolving student and family needs, as well as new research on proven family engagement best practices, emphasizing flexibility to align with a school district’s changing structure and community needs.
When these four conditions are systematically in place across a school district, research shows that student performance improves and school systems become more effective.
Characteristics of a Universal Family Engagement Platform
As a mission-driven nonprofit, TalkingPoints invests in research and contributes to the evidence base of practices that significantly improve student outcomes. Collaborating with school districts, universities, and leading experts like Dr. Mapp, our research team has identified the essential characteristics of an effective Universal Family Engagement platform:
1. Research-based
Platform design should focus on evidence-based features and practices. Choose solutions supported by rigorous studies that meet ESSA research standards.
2. Intentionally focused on outcomes
Unlike traditional communication solutions that prioritize easy multi-channel messaging for staff, a Universal Family Engagement platform is explicitly designed to drive student outcomes. Expect well-curated tools for schools to gather family input to inform practices and resource allocation. Look for embedded best practice guidance that builds the capacity of staff and families, integrating seamlessly into everyday activities to improve student outcomes directly.
3. Universally designed to ensure barrier-free engagement
To build effective partnerships with all families, a Universal Family Engagement platform must eliminate barriers to engagement, such as language, time, technology, knowledge, and mindsets. It should:
- Streamline practices based on what works best for families, avoiding both over- and under-communication. Since phones are the most common and accessible devices, opt-out texting should be the default, enabling two-way communication that fosters informal, culturally relevant conversations and builds trust between home and school.
- Engage families in their preferred languages using high-quality, two-way translation, tailored for the K-12 context and supported by human translation. Look for tools that explain educational terms and provide context to help families understand communication and assist those with limited literacy, learning differences, or disabilities.
4. Leverages actionable, improvement-centered data analytics
A Universal Family Engagement platform should include data dashboards that empower teachers, staff, and administrators to monitor progress and continuously improve engagement practices. Look for tools that can easily identify families who may be falling through the cracks or are more challenging to reach.
5. Easy to implement and use
Platform design should leverage advanced technology and also be easy to implement and use. Given limited staff time and professional development resources, seek a streamlined solution that is efficient to implement and intuitive for staff and families, requiring little to no training.
School districts around the country are evolving the way family engagement is done to realize the student outcome benefits from Universal Family Engagement.
About TalkingPoints
TalkingPoints is an education technology nonprofit with the mission to drive student success by unlocking the superpower of effective family-school partnerships. The TalkingPoints award-winning Universal Family Engagement platform helps educators improve student and district outcomes through scalable, research-based best practices for family engagement. Across districts nationwide, TalkingPoints has empowered more than five million educators and families, facilitating nearly one billion conversations that drive student success.
Named by Common Sense Education as “the best overall family communication platform for teachers and schools,” TalkingPoints leads to gains in attendance rates and academic performance, as shown by rigorous, externally validated causal research. To learn more, view our TED Talk or visit talkingpts.org.
