Collaborate with Families

Abstract

Collaboration with families is 1 of the 7 targets identified in the National Agenda for Children and Youth with Serious Emotional Disturbance. Families, educators, and community professionals are all presently developing structures and methods to collaboratively improve services. Recent findings suggest that educational services for students with emotional and behavioral disorders require the involvement of families in the planning and implementation of the services, and that family support organizations positively influence families' ability to collaborate effectively with schools and agencies. In this article, we review essential components to collaborating with families, present two programs that have successfully integrated families into all aspects of their work, and provide recommendations for enhancing collaborative practices for families, practitioners, researchers, teacher educators, and policymakers.