Launched during Refugee Week, Schools and Families in Partnership: A Desktop Guide to Engaging Families from Refugee Backgrounds in their Children’s Learning, gives schools vital information about ways that families and schools can collaborate to meet the needs of students and their families from refugee backgrounds.
The guide focuses on engaging parents from diverse backgrounds in their child’s education through tailored parent/teacher interviews and orientation sessions, as well as ways to encourage parents to get involved in the classroom or school council. Schools with strong family and school engagement practices worked with Foundation House for more than two years to develop the resource. Foundation House held the Schools and Families Working Together Forum on Tuesday 16 June. Over 170 participants from 45 schools across Melbourne, Bendigo and Traralgon participated in a range of workshops about schools and families of refugee backgrounds working together to improve educational outcomes and enhance social inclusion. The state government sponsored the Refugee Education Support Program (RESP) which supported selected ‘lighthouse’ schools to trial a new model of collaboration. The learnings from this approach resulted in the formulation of a background paper and the Schools and Families in Partnership; A Desktop Guide to Engaging Families from Refugee Backgrounds in their Children’s Learning which was launched by the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education, the Hon James Merlino. 
