Highlights the themes of this special issues of "New Direction for Student Services," providing a rationale and strategy for working with parents of college students. Suggests titles for further research. (GCP)

Examines parental perceptions of the importance of grandparents as providers of routine care to children with disabilities and the impact of such assistance on parental well being. Findings indicate that grandparents are a common source of weekly assistance, and that participation helps grandparents get to know the child with a disability on an…

Quasi-experimental study of the use of TIPS (Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork) interactive homework assignments in middle-school science instruction found that interactive assignments promoted greater family involvement and better grades than did noninteractive assignments. (Contains 26 references.) (PKP)

Most literature on staff-family relationships has come from studies of long-term care settings, has focused mainly on the families' perspectives on factors affecting their relationships with staff, and has included scant findings from the staff's perspective. No studies that examined staff-family relationships in complex continuing care (CCC)…

This article describes an innovative week of training days, entitled Celebrating Families, which took place at Sunfield, Worcestershire, in July 2002. The week, for and around families of children with special needs, arose from a shared vision and philosophy held by three host organisations. Representatives of all three organisations have…

Teachers know that when families are involved meaningfully in schools, students perform better in academic, behavioral, and emotional domains. This article describes a project designed to enhance the quality of children's literacy interactions with family members and simultaneously increase family involvement at school. The level of participation…

This article seeks to provide insights into the role of teacher beliefs about parent and family involvement in supporting or inhibiting parent and family participation in partnerships related to the well being of child and family. The authors aim to offer positive beliefs and strategies for developing nurturing relations between families and…

In this article, the author proposes a family systems approach, where parents and children alike follow relationship rules that allow no intimidating verbal abuse or physical abuse. Many children who are socially and emotionally disabled, with no presenting biological cause, are often such due to the discomfort they experience in their world of…

In the last 50 years, several new technologies have become enormously important within the Deaf community and have helped significantly to improve deaf people's lives in a hearing world. Current public attention and admiration, however, seems unduly focused on medical technologies that promise to solve "the problem" of being deaf. One reason for…

The concept of social organization provides an important framework for understanding families in the context of communities and focuses our attention on norms, networks, and associated processes that typify community life. We discuss the significance of community for understanding family outcomes, discuss challenges in defining community context,…

The vision for "School Psychology Review" for the 2006-2010 editorial term is described, and five major goals are outlined. These goals include (a) addressing issues of critical importance to school psychology and the broader domains of child-oriented psychology and education; (b) promoting intervention and prevention research and publishing this…

Three families living in an urban area in the Midwest with elementary-age children diagnosed with disabilities were interviewed about their family involvement in special education programming and intervention. The study explored how three mothers used social networks to advocate and care for their child's special education programming. Using…

Students in a pre-service teacher education course, an overview of special education, were required to interview a parent of a special needs child, as well as a special education teacher as a course assignment. Because most educators have little or no training in family involvement and pre-service teacher training in this area is at best limited,…

Many classroom teachers across the United States feel unprepared to work with students and families who speak limited or no English. Knowing that schools are accountable for the achievement results of these students, teachers increasingly seek help. This article describes a professional development project designed to introduce K-12 teachers to…

The Government is urging teachers to engage more closely with families and is promoting the concept of the "extended" school. This article reports on the literacy strand of the Home School Knowledge Exchange (HSKE) project, directed by Professor Martin Hughes at the University of Bristol. A selection of literacy activities developed…