OSD Elementary Family Liaison Program

 

 Liaison program! The Teaching & Learning department was incredibly intentional in our hiring process. Every member of the team has unique skills that they can offer the position, with one liaison placed at each elementary school. The lens of the role is through social justice work, dismantling racism and oppressive practices by serving the whole school in multi-tiered systems that strengthens partnerships and empowers families. Our model uses the foundation of OSPI’s Family Engagement Framework.

 

Family engagement is a full and equitable partnership among families, educators, providers, and communities to support learners’ development from birth through college and career. It is a collective responsibility that means doing with—not doing for—families.

 

We also collaborate with our stakeholders including administrators, staff members, community 

leaders and families to ensure that our program lives its' m

ission and vision.

 

The Family Liaison program bridges the gap between students and their communities. It provides socioemotional support, community support, access to basic needs such as housing, furniture, electrical bills, food bank, etc., and school support. The Family Liaison’s work closely with their principals and counselors to focus on the direct needs of the school.

Our Mission

1. Move towards a meaningful partnership between the community and the schools.
   •  Family Liaisons partner with families who have been historically disenfranchised to empower our families to impact our systems and policies that ultimately impact them
2. Create schools to be community hub to facilitate access to resources for families to thrive.
   •  Family Liaisons advocate and support families by shaping our schools to be a community center to facilitate access to socioemotional, academic, college and career readiness, and basic resources to thrive in the school and the community.
3. Co-lead practices and co-create systems towards anti-oppression and anti-racism in Olympia School District.
   • Family Liaisons dismantle the barriers minoritized communities face with accessing comprehensive education and success within the school system.

 

Family Liaison T&L Leadership

Additionally, our Family Liaisons have created leadership groups to work on the goals associated with our Vision and Mission. All projects related to family liaison work facilitates access to resources and creating schools to be a community hub relate to dismantling oppressive systems. As we create these tools to empower our family voices we ensure the continuity of the anti-oppressive work that we are doing so that future Family Liaisons can continue to lead our efforts towards social justice in education.

1. Framework: Critically analyze our current Family Liaison systems and ensure that we are moving towards creating meaningful partnerships with the community.
   • (e.g. identifying what training or tools family liaisons can use to grow their work, ensuring consistency across schools and Family Liaison/partnership systems development)
2. Resource: Audit current community resource allocation systems, including holiday programming, and create a centralized system to ensure that all families within Olympia School District who need additional support accessing resources during the school year that they need.
   • (e.g. Holiday systems, creating comprehensive list of resources for all staff and families, connecting with community partners to develop formal partnerships and creating a centralized resource space)
3. Empowering Family Voices: Create tools and templates for projects that Family Liaisons can use to shape our schools to be a community center.
   • (e.g. Panorama, Family Focus Groups, Family Night events, PTA Partnerships)