Listed below are the three pre-conference sessions available at the 2018 National Family and Community Engagement conference in Cleveland OH, July 11-13, 2018. Pre-conference sessions are intended as an optional session to dive deeper into a specific topic area. Click here to Register.

Developing Students’ Career & College Readiness: Strategies for Families and Family Engagement

All youth, including those with disabilities, need quality career development opportunities starting in secondary school or earlier to ensure that they achieve college and career readiness by high school graduation. Family members and other caring adults play a vital yet often unrecognized role in supporting students with developing career and college readiness. This pre-conference session will focus on strategies that families can use to assist their young person with: 1) developing self-awareness to inform goal setting and planning, 2) exploring career and postsecondary options 3)building personal competencies for college and career success, and 4) planning and navigating the transition into postsecondary education and employment. The session will also offer strategies for educators and other family engagement and transition professionals on how to approach postsecondary and career preparation for youth as a collective effort that requires participation and support from families. The co-presenters will include schools and community organizations who will share how they are engaging families in college and career readiness activities with students as well as lessons learned.

Metrics that Make Sense: Using Our Stories to Demonstrate Impact

As family and community engagement leaders, we are asked to be more knowledgeable about and skillful in collecting and analyzing evidence to make decisions and to claim success in our endeavors. Learn how the stories of families, youth, school leaders, and teachers can become a powerful metric to demonstrate impact. In this workshop, we use Community Learning Exchange (CLE) protocols to tell our stories of effectiveness, apply the principles of story-mapping to analyze stories of impact, and develop questions that direct future inquiry. In the process, we collectively gain agency over the metrics and evidence that define our work. The pre-conference provides usable tools and protocols for all family and community leaders to become effective storytellers and evidence-based decision-makers.