Family Advocate

Title

Family Advocate

Family Engagement Coordinator or Head Start Director’s Designee

The Family Advocate (FA) will work as a member of a team whose primary role is to engage all families to partner with us to promote children’s healthy development and school readiness. The Family Advocate uses knowledge of the principles of family engagement to support families in their roles as their child’s primary educator, encourage parent/child interactions that promote children’s school readiness and healthy development, and enhance family well-being.

In this role, the Family Advocate will provide more intensive and targeted support to families based upon their individualized needs. The Family Advocate will work as part of the program’s broader team to expand family engagement strategies that will create a sense of belonging and shared community among families, with the goal of enhancing the relationships and support that families provide to one another in their shared aspirations for their children and themselves.

The position may involve reassignment of caseload and/or center location as deemed necessary for program operations. The Family Advocate will provide direct services to a caseload of approximately 40 families, communicating with families in an effective format that is most accessible.

• Promote Family Environments that Enhance Children’s Development
• Support Families to Meet Self-Identified Goals and Needs
• Engage Families to Support One Another
• Enhance Program Collaboration
• Maintain Accurate and Timely Record Keeping and Reporting

Engage families as partners in their children’s healthy development and school readiness.

• Participate in outreach, recruitment and attendance follow-up activities to engage families in our program; and to motivate their active participation
• Engage families in the Family Partnership Agreement process in order to build relationships and shared accountability for promoting children’s development
• Individualize family engagement and relationship-building to be appropriate to families’ cultural context, as well as respectful of family circumstances.
• Conduct a minimum of two in-person visits with the family in their home or a location of their choice annually
• Support active supervision within the site and classrooms
• Support the classroom, as needed
• Engage families in individualized, in-home and group experiences to enhance parent/child interactions that research shows foster school readiness through consistent family routines, positive guidance and discipline, experience-rich home environments and literacy activities
• Utilize in-classroom time and home visits to build deeper understanding of the relationship between children’s development and their home environments; as well as to model and coach families in positive parent/child interactions

Engage in a process of collaborative partnership building based upon supporting relationships with families of children receiving Head Start services.

• Utilize family self-assessment information to assist families with self-identified goals to enhance self-sufficiency in areas such as education, employment, housing, and access to community resources
• Provide more intensive weekly face-to-face or phone contact with vulnerable families on caseload as identified through their self-assessment or family interactions/communication. Assure that families receive immediate (24‑48 hours) support during times of crisis, and assist with referrals to community-based resources to meet their needs
• Identify and access services and resources responsive to family interests and goals and follow-up with parents to ensure that services met their expectations and needs.
• Analyze self-sufficiency data and utilize data/results to plan and coordinate a variety of parent cohort groups that allow families to support one another to achieve self-sufficiency goals.
• Coordinate or refer families to opportunities for continuing education, employment training/services, and housing through formal or informal networking in the community.