How can adults in Early Years settings and primary schools fully embrace the diverse nature of family life of the children they are working with? This essential text will help students and those already working with children to understand both theoretically and practically, what may constitute a ‘family’. It explores how to build relationships with a child’s family to ensure early years settings and schools are working in partnership with children’s home environments, thereby supporting the best possible learning outcomes for children. It will help the reader to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding of their professional practice in education, and chapter by chapter explores the challenges that may be experienced in working with the diverse nature of family life in the UK, including: mixed race families immigrant, refugee and asylum seeker families step-families and step-parenting gay and lesbian families families and adoption fostering and children in care families living in poverty families and bereavement families and disability (including mental health). Understanding Family Diversity and Home-School Relations is engagingly practical, using case study examples throughout, and providing reflective activities to help the reader consider how to develop their practice in relation to the insights this book provides. It is a unique road-map to understanding pupils’ backgrounds, attitudes and culture and will be essential reading for any student undertaking relevant Foundation and BA Degrees, including those in initial teacher training, taking post-graduate qualifications or as part of a practitioner’s professional development.

Today's mental health practitioners face a rapidly changing clientele. Divorce, remarriage, multiracial marriages, different types of adoption, openly gay and lesbian relationships--all have significantly altered the nature and composition of families. An indispensable classroom text and an important resource for clinicians working in private practice, managed care, and other settings, this book insightfully examines a range of healthy families with creative family structures.

Candlewick relaunches a modern classic for this generation with a beautifully illustrated edition. Heather’s favorite number is two. She has two arms, two legs, and two pets. And she also has two mommies. When Heather goes to school for the first time, someone asks her about her daddy, but Heather doesn’t have a daddy. Then something interesting happens. When Heather and her classmates all draw pictures of their families, not one drawing is the same. It doesn’t matter who makes up a family, the teacher says, because “the most important thing about a family is that all the people in it love one another.” This delightful edition for a new generation of young readers features fresh illustrations by Laura Cornell and an updated story by Lesléa Newman.

This expertly written book provides an accessible framework for culturally competent practice with children and families in child maltreatment cases. Numerous workable strategies and concrete examples are presented to help readers address cultural concerns at each stage of the assessment and intervention process. Professionals and students learn new ways of thinking about their own cultural viewpoints as they gain critical skills for maximizing the accuracy of assessments for physical and sexual abuse; overcoming language barriers in parent and child interviews; respecting families' values and beliefs while ensuring children's safety; creating a welcoming agency environment; and more.

Providing both a theoretical framework and practical strategies, this resource will help teachers, counselors, and related service providers develop understanding and empathy to improve outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with disabilities. The text features narrative portraits of six immigrant families and their children with disabilities, including their cultural histories and personal perspectives regarding assessment, diagnosis, Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings, and other instances in which families engaged with the special education process. Using guiding questions for reflection and “Talk Back” comments from preservice students throughout the text, readers are encouraged to reflect on their own positionality and to develop nuanced and dynamic understandings of CLD children, youth, and families—countering persistent and stereotypical deficit views. “A long-overdue textbook that proactively contributes to preparing teacher candidates to know more about and better understand the diverse students they will teach.” —From the Foreword by Maria de Lourdes B. Serpa, professor emerita, Lesley University “Accessible and innovative. It will be valuable to students, teachers, and family members.” —Philip Ferguson, professor emeritus, Chapman University “This powerful and much-needed book highlights the cultural misunderstandings and systemic inequities that can occur when disability intersects with race.” —Maya Kalyanpur, University of San Diego

A heartwarming story of family, love, and celebrating what makes us special, from master storyteller Patricia Polacco, author of Thank You, Mr. Falker. Marmee, Meema, and the kids are just like any other family on the block. In their cozy home, they cook dinner together, they laugh together, they dance and play together. But one family doesn't accept them. Maybe because they think they are different: How can a family have two moms and no dad? But Marmee and Meema's house is full of love. And they teach their children that different doesn't mean wrong. No matter how many moms or dads they have, they are everything a family is meant to be. Celebrated author-illustrator Patricia Polacco inspires young readers with this message of a wonderful family living by its own rules, held together by a very special love.

Represents a variety of families, some big and some small, some with only one parent and some with two moms or dads, some quiet and some noisy, but all alike in some ways and special no matter what.