Currently in Milwaukee and in several other regions statewide, sponsored through the Wisconsin Afterschool Network, afterschool site leaders are meeting in Communities of Practice to tackle barriers and build better family engagement strategies in their programs. Encouraged to think ‘beyond the family night,’ these afterschool leaders have taken on a host of strategies unique to their own community and program needs and dynamics. In Milwaukee, we identified that programs often have limited casual contact with parents, and while we could list ways to maximize that kind of contact and the quality of them, we felt it was still going to be too structurally limited in at least some programs to just stop there.

The result: Participants in these sessions now have YouTube channels for their site, and are making videos and texting out the links to them to parents. The leaders are making staff bio videos as well as videos about upcoming events, and can even post brief resources for families and parents. We also learned how to make simple newsletters using Google Docs and texting out a link to that, too. Our thinking is that these contacts will be easy to receive and will make parents more aware of and feel closer to and that the program staff are allies of their children and themselves as parents. This will help to build trust, familiarity and the likelihood of future participation. Stay tuned for info about our results!