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The Importance of Home & School Collaboration When Developing Daily Living Skills

Written by:

 Jennifer Schmidt


Published: September 30, 2024

Last Reviewed: September 30, 2024

READING TIME: ~ minutes

When Sophie’s grades started slipping, it wasn’t just her family and teachers who noticed—it was her counselor and her coach who stepped in, showing that it truly takes a village to raise a child.

Collaborative efforts among families, schools, and communities play a crucial role in developing essential life skills in neurodivergent youth.

Home-school collaboration regarding student learning and behavior is associated with better academic performance and persistence. This positive impact extends beyond school, supporting learner success beyond graduation.

This article explores how each of these pillars—family, school, and community—contributes uniquely to this goal and why their collective efforts are vital for developing life skills.

What Exactly is Collaboration & Why Is It Important?

Collaboration is the act of working with others. More broadly, it includes bringing many people together with unique perspectives and expertise to find new and creative solutions to problems. Shared decision-making and shared goal-setting are important components of collaboration.

As the parent or teacher of a neurodivergent individual, your learner may have a support system in the home, school, and/or community that supports the development of daily living skills. People develop daily living skills in different ways, with some individuals requiring more repetition and support to develop these skills. Home, school, and community team members can help neurodivergent individuals develop more complex daily living skills and overcome barriers through collaboration.

The Science Behind Home-School Collaboration

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Education highlighted the importance of home-school partnerships. Collaboration is the foundation by which families, schools, communities, and other service providers connect to improve learner outcomes. Collaboration among families, schools, communities, and service providers is the key to enhancing learner outcomes. This teamwork benefits everyone involved, including educators, schools, communities, and learners. These benefits are described below.

  • Increased School Participation – When learners feel supported, they are more likely to perform better in school, stay in school longer, and enjoy school more. Supportive environments lead to improved attendance, better homework completion, and increased involvement in school activities, all of which boost student achievement.
  • Greater Self-Confidence – Learners gain more confidence when backed by a strong support team. Families also report feeling more capable of supporting their learners at home, often using the same effective strategies applied in school. This alignment boosts teachers’ job satisfaction and creates more positive interactions between educators and families.
  • Improved Academic Achievement – Engaged students tend to perform better in class and are more likely to graduate from high school. They are also more likely to be present and complete classwork, increasing their grades.
  • Efficient Use of Resources—When families, schools, and communities engage in shared decision-making and responsibility, services are less likely to be duplicated or fragmented. Skills taught across various environments ensure quicker and more effective learning. This approach also maximizes resources, including expanded mental health support and increased participation in community programs that more students can seek out.
  • Less High-Risk Behavior – Greater collaboration and wrap-around support allow learners to have their needs met comprehensively. As a result, students are less likely to be frustrated and engage in behavior to express unmet needs. This leads to fewer disciplinary actions and promotes a more positive school climate for both students and teachers.

Pillars of Support

By working together, families, schools, communities, and learners establish the foundational pillars of support, providing each child with the resources, guidance, and opportunities necessary to excel in learning life skills.

Family

The learner’s family, including guardians and caretakers, plays a crucial role on the support team. They offer valuable insights into the learner’s strengths and challenges at home since they are the experts in their child’s strengths and challenges with independent skills.

Families begin teaching essential daily living skills long before their child enters formal schooling and continue reinforcing these skills throughout their lives. This teaching starts with milestones like a child’s first words and steps and extends beyond major achievements like obtaining a driver’s license or securing a first job.

School

Schools include all the school-based staff and educators who contribute to a learner’s success in the school environment. This team might include classroom teachers, case managers, administrators, diagnosticians, and related service providers like speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and counselors.

School-based team members are crucial for ensuring the student’s educational experience is tailored to their unique needs. Regular meetings are held for learners with Individualized Education Plans (EPs) or 504 Accommodation Plans. Community partners can be invited to attend these meetings with parent consent.

Community

Community partners cover a wide range of individuals and organizations outside of the immediate school setting who are involved in developing your learner’s life skills. These may include:

  • Healthcare Providers (therapists, mental health providers, medical professionals)
  • Consultants
  • Mentors
  • Advocates or Legal Representatives
  • Transition Coordinators
  • Vocational Rehabilitation Specialists
  • Representatives from local colleges or universities

Community members provide the team with valuable information about resources and support available in the community, helping the learner generalize life skills across different settings. They bring specialized knowledge to the table to ensure the plan is comprehensive. For instance, a Vocational Rehabilitation Specialist might attend team meetings to help families find a summer camp that teaches and reinforces daily living skills, using progress reports from other school and community-based team members.

Learner

The learner is an active member of their support team, and the team should hear and consider their input. It’s important to make sure the learner has a seat at the table during discussions about their progress. This setting provides a safe space for them to practice self-advocacy skills and help make decisions about ways to develop life skills.

Key Components of Home-School Collaboration

When planning to improve home-school collaboration, various interpersonal skills and objectives must be considered. Christenson and Sheridan (2001) identified four key qualities to promote positive home-school partnerships (p. 282).

  • Student-Focused Collaboration – The team members prioritize the learner’s best interests, working together to enhance learning opportunities and success in all areas of daily living skills. The team incorporates the learner’s preferences.
  • Shared Responsibility – Families, schools, and community partners all play important roles on the team. Each member understands their unique role in supporting the learner’s success and values the contributions of other team members in promoting daily living skills. The team works together and shares the responsibility of promoting positive outcomes.
  • Emphasize Connection—Team members interact regularly to ensure that the skills and strategies they are using effectively improve learner outcomes. Team members ensure services across settings support the same goals and outcomes.
  • Solution-Focused Approach – Families, schools, and community partners are intentional about the skills taught. Home, school, and community partners have opportunities to reflect on what’s working well and what needs improvement.

Additional Tips and Resources

  • Focus on Relationship Building – Individuals within a team must develop relationships with one another to engage in the collaborative process. Families, schools, and community partners can make efforts to establish trust and respect with one another (p. 282).
  • Importance of Interpersonal Skills – It’s important to help others feel safe to speak and listen to one another in collaborative situations. Assume that everyone in the room has positive intentions. Demonstrate that you’re listening to their input by facing the speaker and listening attentively.
  • In the Event of Conflict – Disagreements may arise when people from various experiences and unique perspectives come together. It’s normal to have differing perspectives on how the learner can best learn and retain life skills. Despite differences in beliefs and expertise, everyone at the table has one common goal: they want the best for the student.
  • Model These Skills for Your Learner—When helping a student develop life skills, interpersonal skills, and communication are necessary for establishing trust and respect, which is necessary for collaboration. By modeling these skills in the context of problem-solving with a team, your learners will have opportunities to practice those same skills.

Coaches Can Be Part of the Team, Too!

Some learners will participate in community services, such as counseling or coaching. Below are some ideas of ways to include your learner’s support system in multidisciplinary teams and ways in which you can use our free resources to help guide problem-solving around daily living and executive functioning skills.

  • Executive functioning coaches can be a part of the collaborative team, providing valuable insight into your learner’s daily living skills. Just like counselors and tutors, coaches can share your learner’s clear, individualized focuses and outcomes from coaching with the team to help inform academic and personal goals. EF coaches may have formal training working with neurodiverse populations and can help provide strategies and recommendations for use with the school-based team.
  • Executive functioning skills are best taught when supported across settings. Different skills and strategies found in the Executive Functioning 101 Resource Hub may be helpful for the team to consider. Reinforcing helpful skills across settings will help the learner become more independent in using those skills in the long term.
  • The Executive Functioning Assessment can be used by families, schools, or other professionals to identify strengths and challenges in executive functioning skills. The results of this tool can assist a team in identifying areas for further improvement, which lends itself to a conversation about how all the team members can support those needs in different environments. A learner who struggles with time management, for example, could be taught to use time-tracking tools with parents at home and during tasks at school.

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)

Collaboration between families, schools, and communities is necessary when helping your learner develop more complex daily living skills. Collaboration is when members of a team work together to problem solve, make decisions, and develop a plan to support your learner’s success. Positive home, school and community collaboration has been found to result in improvements to:

  • School Participation
  • Confidence
  • Academic Achievement
  • Resource Allocation
  • Communicative Behavior

The family, school, community partners, and learner make up the pillars of support necessary for collaboration. All team members bring valuable insight and perspectives to the problem-solving process. This shared decision-making is important when considering ways to help learners learn and apply these skills across settings. Learners should be a part of the process to practice self-advocacy, an advanced daily living skill.

Collaboration is most successful when the team is student-focused, shares responsibility, critically reviews student outcomes, and is solution-focused. Developing trust and respect with your team members is also important to create a safe, collaborative environment. Communication and interpersonal skills are important skills to use on a collaborative team and can also be modeled for the learner.

Further Reading

About The Author

Jennifer Schmidt

Jennifer Schmidt is a Wisconsin-based school psychologist. Jennifer earned her Master of Science in Education, with an emphasis in School Psychology, from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She also holds an undergraduate degree in Psychology, with a minor in Family, Health, and Disability studies from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. As an early career professional, Jennifer works in rural Wisconsin by partnering with teachers, school administrators, and other professionals to create safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments that strengthen connections between the school, home, and community agencies. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with friends and family, reading, and video gaming.

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