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Rephrasing Home-School Relationships: Holding Caregiver Education Trauma and Lived Realities

$0.00

Many school-family relationships are framed by deficit-oriented scripts—where caregivers are judged for not meeting “respectable” standards shaped by privilege and power-hoarding. Rephrasing Home-School Relationships challenges these learned narratives, highlighting how caregiver education trauma, working-class realities, and cultural mistrust can shape engagement with schools. In this workshop, participants explore how to dismantle respectability politics and create authentic, healing-centered strategies that validate caregivers’ lived experiences. By reframing home-school interactions with empathy and shared power, we build deeper trust, promote true collaboration, and celebrate the rich knowledge families bring.

Many school-family relationships are framed by deficit-oriented scripts—where caregivers are judged for not meeting “respectable” standards shaped by privilege and power-hoarding. Rephrasing Home-School Relationships challenges these learned narratives, highlighting how caregiver education trauma, working-class realities, and cultural mistrust can shape engagement with schools. In this workshop, participants explore how to dismantle respectability politics and create authentic, healing-centered strategies that validate caregivers’ lived experiences. By reframing home-school interactions with empathy and shared power, we build deeper trust, promote true collaboration, and celebrate the rich knowledge families bring.

Key Focus Areas

  1. Exposing Deficit-Oriented Scripts

    • Identify ways in which mainstream educational language and policies disregard or pathologize caregivers who do not fit white, middle-class norms.

  2. Holding Education Trauma & Lived Experience

    • Understand how past negative experiences—such as punitive schooling, racism, or class-based stigma—impact how caregivers view and interact with schools.

  3. Building Equitable Partnerships

    • Develop tools that invite caregivers into co-creation, nurturing trust, honoring working-class realities, and respecting cultural wisdom rather than imposing compliance.

Who Should Attend?

  • K–12 & Early Childhood Educators
    Seeking to replace blame-focused parent “engagement” approaches with affirming, reciprocal ways of collaborating.

  • Administrators & Family Liaisons
    Looking to design more inclusive policies and school events that honor diverse caregiver experiences, especially for those burdened by prior educational harm.

  • Community & Nonprofit Program Leaders
    Interested in forming respectful, solidarity-based partnerships with families without replicating deficit narratives or power imbalances.

  • DEI Teams & Policy Advocates
    Committed to dismantling classism, racism, and respectability politics in the language and practices that shape home-school relationships.

Learning Objectives

  1. Confront Deficit Scripts & Respectability Politics

    • Examine how current outreach efforts can unintentionally shame or exclude families, perpetuating class- and race-based biases.

  2. Embrace Trauma-Informed Caregiver Engagement

    • Recognize signs of caregiver education trauma and explore tools to hold space for healing, trust-building, and collective goal-setting.

  3. Practice Shared Power & Co-Creation

    • Learn to develop policies, communication methods, and meeting formats that amplify caregivers’ expertise, cultural knowledge, and communal leadership.

Why It Matters

Schools often position families—especially those with working-class or historically marginalized backgrounds—as obstacles to student success, rather than integral partners with lived wisdom. This deficit framing can intensify caregiver distrust and perpetuate power-hoarding structures where staff dictate terms. By acknowledging education trauma, cultural mistrust, and the structural reasons behind “absent” or “noncompliant” caregivers, educators can forge genuine alliances that center respect, collaboration, and shared accountability. Recognizing family resilience and capacities, schools tap into a broader collective of resources that enrich the entire learning community.

Is This Workshop For You?

  • Struggling to increase caregiver participation in school events or conferences?
    We’ll discuss reframing outreach approaches, acknowledging time/work constraints, and dispelling shame around “attendance.”

  • Seeking ways to involve caregivers without imposing middle-class, English-centered, or “professionalized” norms?
    Discover inclusive communication strategies that validate diverse schedules, languages, and community practices.

  • Noticing caregiver skepticism or reluctance to engage, rooted in past negative school experiences?
    Learn how empathetic listening, restorative dialogue, and creative accountability build mutual respect.

  • Ready to integrate caregiver knowledge into curriculum planning, resource allocation, or decision-making?
    We’ll demonstrate co-creative processes that honor the expertise families hold about their children and communities.

If these points resonate, Rephrasing Home-School Relationships: Holding Caregiver Education Trauma and Lived Realities offers tangible frameworks for moving from blame or power-hoarding to shared, culturally responsive partnerships.