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FAST® Institute of Family Engagement

The FAST Institute provides training and coaching for family engagement professionals, educators, and staff to help schools create a welcoming environment for all families—particularly for BIPOC families and families living in poverty. It is designed to help, guide, and support participants to:

  1. Build a welcoming school climate and culture that values and respects families as partners
  2. Establish practices at both the classroom and school-wide levels which link family engagement to learning and academic success
  3. Engage families in culturally diverse settings and bridge racial, socioeconomic, and cultural differences through an asset-based approach
  4. Collaborate with families to create and implement activities and services and engage with community organizations to build partnerships

The institute blends best practices in teacher training and family and community engagement and applies an equity-focused approach. Training and coaching session topics, delivery (in-person or virtual), duration, and audience are all customizable to the needs of your school.

Components of FAST Institute

Readiness Assessment
Schools gather data and feedback about the status of family engagement across 6 domains. Information gathered will help set a baseline, direct session planning, and can be used to chart progress over time.
Professional Development
Sessions can be administered to whole-school staff or to smaller groups and cover a wide range of topics related to family engagement. Data collected in the readiness assessment as well as overall school goals can help direct selection of topics. Professional development is hands-on, proactive, and focused on shifting mindsets while providing practical, easy-to-use tools for educators.
Coaching
Coupled with Professional Development, coaching sessions are designed to be more collaborative working meetings, where a FAST Coach meets one-on-one with a family engagement team from each school (teachers, family engagement staff, administrator, parents) to help establish goals, create an action plan, and move the work of family engagement forward.

We have strategies that educators can use tomorrow to create stronger partnership with families, in support of student academic success and well-being.

2024-25 Institute Offerings2022-23 Institute Offerings
While topics can be customized to meet the needs of a school or district, we have several sessions available that can be combined or conducted as standalone, as needed.

Available topics for the 2024-25 school year include:

  • Introduction to Family Engagement
  • Strengthening Classroom Conditions
  • Empowering Families at Parent-Teacher Conferences
  • Creating a Welcoming School Climate
  • Effective Communication Strategies
  • Race, Class, Culture, Gender and Examining Implicit Bias
  • Family Engagement and Advocacy
  • Collaborating with the Community
  • Evaluating and Sustaining Family Engagement Practices

  • Family Engagement Introduction
  • Welcoming Environment
  • Virtual Engagement & COVID Challenges
  • Parent-Teacher Conferences
  • Strengthening Classrooms
  • Advocacy & Power Sharing
  • Race, Class, Culture & Implicit Bias
  • Community Collaboration
  • Evaluating & Sustaining Practices
  • Additional Topics

During these sessions, facilitators/coaches and participants review key research, discuss best practices, and share tools and strategies school staff can use daily when working with families. Emphasis is on group discussion and hands-on approaches that build family-school partnership.

If you are interested in strengthening and customizing your family engagement practice, review our FAST Institute Playbook, learn about school-level funding sources that can be used for FAST Institute, or contact us for more information. Explore our FAQs page to learn more.

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