Supporting Parent Engagement in Linguistically Diverse Families to Promote Young Children's Learning: Implications for Early Care and Education Policy

This report looks at the most effective engagement strategies to use with the families of dual language learners. There is wide agreement that early care and education programs should support parent engagement linked to early learning for all families, including families from diverse language and cultural backgrounds. This brief highlights research that can inform policies to expand the capacity of early care and education programs to promote parent engagement in linguistically diverse families with young children. Policy initiatives that could strengthen the capacity of early care and education programs to support parent engagement in these families include: establishing program requirements and quality standards that specifically address the needs and interests of families whose home language is not English; providing educational opportunities to individuals who can increase the linguistic diversity and cultural competency of the early care and education workforce; providing resources to support programs' use of parent engagement practices and activities that are most promising for linguistically diverse families; and using data to understand the participation of linguistically diverse families in parent engagement activities and inform efforts to strengthen programs' capacity to engage diverse families.