Student and Family Engagement: Lessons Learned from the Check & Connect Intervention Studies

1. Student and Family Engagement: Lessons Learned from the Check & Connect Intervention Studies Description of Check & Connect Evidence for the intervention model Suggestions for implementing C & C Time for questions

2. Research and Implementation Team • Many individuals:Mary Sinclair, Cammy Lehr, Martha Thurlow, Christine Hurley, David Evelo, Colleen Kaibel and Research and Community Program Assistants • Began: Fall, 1990 in two middle schools in the Minneapolis School District with OSEP funding • At present: Worked with K–12 students in suburban schools and urban schools with OSEP, Dakota County, and NIMH funding • Applications nationally and internationally

3. What is Check & Connect? • A comprehensive model designed to enhance students’ engagement at school and with learning. • Relationship Building, Systematic Monitoring, and Following Students and Families • An important premise of C & C is the shift in focus from preventing negative outcomes (dropout) to promoting student competence, school success and school completion (positive outcomes) • Standards and supports • 11 month intervention • Comprised of four main components

4. Component 1: Systematic Monitoring • Of students’ school adjustment, behavior, and educational progress • Connection to school – by checking in three areas: • Attendance (skips, tardies, absences) • Academic performance (credits earned, GPA, reading objectives passed) • Behavior (behavioral referrals, suspensions, detentions) • Monitoring students’ functional behavior and alterable variables – not only demographic risks • This is the “Check” Component – done at least weekly

5. Component 2: Timely and Individualized Intervention • Our Connect Component • Two levels – match to student need – use check data to determine type and level of risk for disengagement • All targeted students receive basic interventions – a deliberate conversation about: • Sharing monitoring data • Discussing the relevance of school for students’ future goals • Problem solving about ways to meet demands of the school environment • Looking for ways to increase student participation • Students showing high risk behaviors receive additional intensive interventions

6. Intensive Interventions • Problem Solving: • Problem-solving sessions • Parent problem-solving meetings • Individualized behavioral contracts • Alternatives for out-of-school suspensions • Academic Support: • Tutor-mentor • Individualized academic contract • Recreation/Community Service: • Access to after-school activities • Summer employment

7. Work toward self-determination • We use a five-step cognitive behavioral problem solving strategy: • Stop. Think about the problem. • What are some choices? • Choose one. • Do it. • How did it work? (Braswell & Bloomquist, 1991) • Help students integrate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to meet schooling demands: • Coming to class on time • Attending classes regularly • Working hard in class • Completing assignments • Getting passing grades

8. The Mentor – the Third Component • Linchpin for the Check & Connect components • Person in student’s life who keeps education salient • Provides social support for families (navigates school system and requirements; assists with communication) • Serves as an anchor point for students, families, teachers, and support personnel • Builds relationships thru formal connections and informal connections – showing interest in student’s life

9. Component 4: Connect with Families • Mentors are a liaison; follow students and families • Focus on enhancing home-school communication, keeping the focus on the student’s educational performance. • Mentors may attend parent-teacher conferences • Mentors meet with parents about how there could be more of an educational focus at home • Responsive to parents needs about ways to help engage their children • Worked with school staff and community supports to offer parent education classes or workshops that families identify as being interesting or important • Used multiple ways to connect with families: phones, written notes to parents to let them know what is going on in school, and home visits • Made home visits at least once a year for a positive reason

10. Role of the Mentor Monitoring is essential for students at-risk of disengaging as a learner for two reasons . . . • Provides a systematic and efficient way to connect students with immediate interventions that includes the family • Provides an essential link to students’ educational progress and performance

11. Persistence-plus: • Persistence: There is someone who is not going to give up on the student or allow the student to be distracted from the importance of school. • Continuity: There is someone who knows the student’s needs and desires and is available across school years. • Consistency: The message is the same from all concerned adults.

12. Persistence-plus Message: A caring adult wants you to . . . • learn • do the work • attend class regularly • be on time • express frustration constructively • stay in school

13. In a nutshell: Check & Connect is comprised of systematic monitoring of student performance, timely intervention coordinated with teachers and parents, and relationship building with the mentor who provides the persistent support and an avenue for problem solving with the student. These aspects allow the mentor to design in collaboration with others an individualized approach to service delivery for students at risk of educational failure or early school withdrawal.

14. In sum: • We have hypothesized that the unique feature of Check & Connect is not the specific interventions per se, but the fact that interventions are facilitated by a person, the mentor, who is trusted and known by the student and who has demonstrated his or her concern for the school performance of the youth persistently and consistently over time. • Persistent support to meet standards

15. Evidence for Check & Connect • Experimental Studies -Secondary Level-SWD • 9th grade students (N=93) with disabilities in the treatment group were significantly more likely to be enrolled in school, have persisted in school, and on track to graduate within five years. • High school students with EBD (N=150) were significantly less likely to dropout, more likely to persist in school, and more likely to access educational services (alternative programs, transition planning). They were more likely to be on track to complete school in four years; and more likely to have completed school at the end of five years.

16. Three Non-experimental Studies • Chronically truant students in grades 6-12 with and without disabilities in suburban schools. • Shown improvement in attendance, skipped classes, out-of-school suspensions, and academic performance. • About 65% of Check & Connect students (N=91) were successfully engaged (equivalent of 0-1 day absent per month), with no incidences of class failures. Levin’s data – each failed grade increases dropout by 15% • More effective if students are referred before absences exceed 25% of the school year.

17. Pre-post intervention results for elementary students with and without disabilities (N= 147 with 2 years of intervention) in suburban settings revealed that tardies to and absences from school declined, and attendance has improved. • Nearly two-thirds of students have improved attendance and 15% have stabilized their level of engagement. • One-third of students were receiving all passing marks. • 87% of parents were rated by teachers as more supportive of their children’s education. • Teacher perception of child behavior is positive – 90% indicated students were showing improvement in homework completion, interest in school, and attendance. • Sustained intervention: more eager to learn, to follow directions, get along with others, show respect

18. Descriptive study • Effect of the Mentor-Student Relationship • Elementary students who were referred for attendance difficulties • After controlling for student risk factors and prior attendance, student and mentor perceptions of the quality of the relationship predicted improved attendance. • Mentor perception of the relationship was associated positively with teacher-rated academic engagement and approached significance as a predictor of teacher-rated social competence.

19. Check & Connect • Has met the evidence based standards of the What Works Clearinghouse • Concluded Check & Connect to have positive effects on staying in school and potentially positive effects on progressing in school.

20. Need to know: • How students cognitive engagement (goal setting) and affective engagement (sense of belonging, relatedness with teachers and peers) mediates greater time on task and attendance • Whether there are improved outcomes for Check & Connect where universal interventions that focus on engagement and school climate – like pbis – are in place

21. Suggestions for Implementing C & C • Implementation steps: • Determine indicators of disengagement (alterable risk factors: Attendance (tardiness, absences), Behavior (behavioral referrals, suspensions), Academics (low academic performance) • Systematically target students for intervention • Select mentors (persistence, believe all students have abilities, willingness to cooperate with families and school staff, advocacy skills (negotiation, compromise, confrontation), and organization (case management, documentation) • Caseload – ideal if a mentor has 1 hour per week per student

22. Set Criteria for Check Risk Factors – determines need for basic or intensive intervention • Organize existing resources - Mentors are service coordinators: mentors “broker services” • Begin checking and connecting – all within a persistence framework • Mentor is the standardized part of the intervention • Meet with program supervisor • Think of ways to evaluate • Modification of our model: check in and check out

23. Considerations for Effective Implementation of Targeted Intervention • Systematically target students for intervention • Systematic identification and monitoring • Use multiple referral criteria derived from alterable indicators of engagement • Use data to guide intervention and improvement • Routine use of check data

24. Considerations, continued: • Maintain a focus on a student’s educational progress • Keep outreach focused on alterable factors • Maintain problem solving – an optimistic view • Partner with families • Use a family-centered, nonblaming approach; home visiting; bilingual staff

25. Considerations, continued: • Make a sustained and long term commitment • Allows for time to build trusting relationships, redirect student’s trajectory, provide support during transitions, manage staff learning curves • Meet as a Check & Connect team • Supervisor maintained treatment integrity and provided an opportunity to debrief and receive ongoing staff development

26. Merits of Check & Connect • Persistent Outreach – consistent long term support that is student and family focused. • Relationship Building – follow students and families from school to school (staff not bound to one school) • Prevention – monitoring alterable predictors of dropping out • Efficient – uses existing resources and two levels of intervention to maximize finite resources • Capacity Building – promotes acquisition of skills and confidence

27. In closing. . . • Increasing the successful completion of school is much more than simply staying in school, and thus, much more than the dropout problem – it involves meeting the defined academic standards of the school, as wellas underlying social and behavioral standards. • Focus on student engagement – a multi-dimensional construct: • Relationship building • Problem solving • Systematic monitoring of alterable variables • Persistent support

28. Questions . . .

29. Contact Information Sandra L. Christenson, Ph.D. Birkmaier Professor of Educational Leadership University of Minnesota School Psychology Program 344 Education Sciences Building 56 East River Road Minneapolis, MN 55455 612-624-0037 chris002@umn.edu Thank you!

30. Check & Connect Information • http://www.ici.umn.edu/checkandconnect/ • Check & Connect has recently met the evidence standards of the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse (WWC, 2006; www.whatworks.ed.gov ). • Hammond, C., Linton, D., Smink, J., & Drew, S. (2007). Dropout risk factors and exemplary programs. Clemson, SC: National Dropout Prevention Center, Communities in Schools, Inc. www.dropoutprevention.org • Christenson, S.L., Reschly, A.L., Appleton, J.J., Berman, S., Spanjers, D., & Varro, P. (In press). Best practices in fostering student engagement. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V. Washington, DC: National Association of School Psychologists.