Working with Immigrant Families
Overview
The Canadian Parenting Workshops fall in line with my research interests associated with the needs of children and families in early childhood education and care settings. They were developed out of a need for parents to have research-based information about how to better support their children’s development. Indeed, it is through fostering and maintaining relationships between educators, parents and children that a child’s sense of learning can be cultivated.
In the workshops, funded by HRDC, the parents, within their specific context, use an alternative form of parental participation that acknowledges the particular historical context in which families live and bases itself in parents' understanding of mainstream institutional processes. Ultimately, the project is about involving conscious, active parents in a liberating pedagogy.
What are they?
The Canadian Parenting Workshops: Preparing Children for School Success are a set of ten research-based workshops, developed, field-tested, and evaluated by Ryerson University’s School of Early Childhood Education. The workshops focus specifically on parents with young children.
What type of information do they provide?
The workshops provide information about all of the factors involved in the schooling of children so that parent’s are able to gain valuable knowledge about how to support their child’s development.
Some of the things parents learn:
- Ways of preparing their children for success in school
- Approaches that support their young children’s healthy social and emotional development.
- Information about the local school system.
- How to access resources and sources of support in their community.
- Child protection policies.
- The levels of government and the sites of decision-making authority for education.
The workshops include:
- Topics of particular interest to parents of preschoolers and elementary school-aged children;
- Teaching and learning activities that empower parents;
- Ten workshop modules—fully scripted and ready for use by either experienced or novice facilitators;
- Facilitator’s guide; and
- Learning evaluation instruments.
Booklets for Parents
This booklet accompanies the program The Canadian Parenting Workshops: Preparing Children for School Success. It is intended for distribution as a handout to all parents who participate in the workshops. It summarizes, in point form, key information presented in each of the ten workshops. The booklet reinforces the learning that takes place during the workshops. It is not an alternative to participation in the workshops. It is intended to be kept by parents as a reference and reminder of the topics discussed in the Canadian Parenting Workshops.
See links for the workshops:
(PDF file) Executive Summary of Program Evaluation Report
(PDF file) Program Evaluation Report
Article with a focus on Newcomer Families
Enhance Your Relationship with Newcomer Parents
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