This WIDA Snapshot offers an introduction to Breaking Barriers, one of the six ABCs of Family and Community Engagement. The ABCs of Family and Community Engagement are six key considerations for educators who support multilingual learners and their families and communities.
Breaking Barriers in action: Engaging with multilingual learners, families and communities
Breaking barriers helps create schools where multilingual learners, families and communities feel welcomed, valued and able to fully participate. It involves examining systems, policies and practices that may unintentionally limit access and working together to create opportunities for learning and thriving. This WIDA Snapshot offers actionable resources for addressing barriers to family and community engagement, whether you are new to this work or looking to strengthen your practice. We invite you to explore the videos, tools and resources below and identify one that you would like to try out in your setting.
Engage with this brief introductory video, and use the guiding questions to reflect and deepen your understanding about breaking barriers in your own context.
Introduction to Breaking Barriers Transcript
Guiding Questions
- What do multilingual learners and their families and communities say are barriers to engagement in our context? If we do not know, how can we gather this information?
- What avenues do we have for addressing barriers and unfair practices impacting multilingual learners, their families and their communities? What will we try first?
- How can we include multilingual learners, their families and community members in collaborative work to break barriers and increase access to opportunities?
Mapping and addressing barriers
Explore the Breaking Barriers video to learn how students, families and educators have identified and addressed barriers to engagement. As you explore the video and review the Mapping and Addressing Barriers and Asset-Based Ideas for Addressing Barriers tools, consider what barriers may exist in your own context and how they might be addressed collaboratively.
Navigating and responding to change
Judy McGrath, a bilingual school therapist in Missouri, has collaborated with students, families, community organizations and other educators to navigate and respond to changing contexts and needs. Explore the considerations for Navigating and Responding to Change with Students and for Navigating and Responding to Change as a School or District.
Professional learning and advancement
Many districts and schools include multilingual family and community engagement as part of their professional learning opportunities. WIDA Fellow Krista Mecham teaches a course at a local university on professionalism and family engagement focused on multilingual families. Her district has partnered with the university so that the course is counted toward an ESL endorsement for in-service teachers. This course helps address a barrier of access to training and advancement around multilingual family and community engagement. Explore the Offering Professional Learning Opportunities tool and the Professional Learning Opportunities video to learn more about Krista’s experiences and gain tips for facilitating professional learning in your context.
This illustration represents Breaking Barriers. The gate to a building’s parking lot is open, and an educator is outside the gate connecting with families. There is a sign that says, “All Are Welcome Here” in the languages that the families speak.