Partnerships with Families and Communities

Partnerships with Families and Communities: Building Dynamic Relationships is a comprehensive and accessible resource that provides pre-service teachers with the tools required to build effective, sustainable and proactive partnerships in both early childhood and primary educational settings. This text introduces models of home-school-community partnerships in educational contexts and presents a comprehensive partnerships approach for best practice in applying and leading effective relationships with key stakeholders.

It explores essential underpinning policies, legislation and research theories that position strong, positive and proactive partnerships as a systemic solution to children's learning development. Key topics covered include diversity in partnership work, reflective practice and tools for evaluating working partnerships. Each chapter includes focused pedagogy, key terms and definitions, scenarios and review questions, which enable readers to deeply engage with new concepts. 'Proactive Partners' boxes explore real-world scenarios and encourage readers to link theory with practice.

About the Authors

Dr Wendy Goff is the Director of Professional Experience in the School of Education at RMIT University. Throughout her academic career, Wendy has held various leadership positions and has received several awards for her research, teaching and leadership. Her research is focused on adult relationships and partnerships, and their impact on children's learning and development. She has used different vehicles to study these relationships and partnerships.

Sivanes Phillipson is Professor of Education at Swinburne University of Technology. She is also the Editor for Routledge's Evolving Families book series. This series focuses on issues, challenges and empirical best practices surrounding evolving families that impact their survival, development and outcomes. Sivanes' earlier research has shown how family and community influences underpin children/youth factors that impact short- and long-term social and economic outcomes. She has extended models of family and community support to enable children and young people to learn and self-regulate within a framework of accessibility and an individual's resources.

Dr Sharryn Clarke is a Kindergarten Improvement Advisor for the Victorian Department of Education and Training. Her research areas and teaching have included child development theory, local and global policy, leadership and partnership with professionals and families. Sharryn has had a great deal of experience establishing and building partnerships in the various positions she has held, including teaching in early childhood services, inclusion support in early intervention and lecturing at universities. Sharryn has a strong interest in capacity building and mentor support, particularly for preservice and beginning teachers in early childhood.