How to create effective parent meet up sessions in your centers?

8 min readJun 18, 2019

“If both the sets, the young people and parents can visualize a future and see how different that future is in terms of prosperity, money, better lifestyle or social mobility, and as educators we ask them this question — can they together draw their future as a family with the above aspects and who contributes to what?”

— Ashutosh Tosaria, Director, Quest Alliance.

Parents play a pivotal role in shaping us in almost every aspect of life, be it personal or professional, there is so much we learn and are impacted by them life long. There has been significant evidence that they also play a significant role in molding the child’s academic life.

Creating a meaningful parent engagement strategy will enable a positive shift and contribute to building stronger education systems. In this article let’s take a look at one of the ways Quest Alliance has helped build an effective strategy for parent engagement in the vocational and industrial training institutes:

1.Create an Objective for the engagement:

One of the first steps is outlining the objective or need for parent engagement in your centres /schools. Parents will be taking time off their busy schedules and they could come from income groups where they also receive daily wages, and whose income is required to support and run the household (especially in a country like India where the unorganized blue collar sector is 92% of the workforce). It might not be easy for the parents to take a day off to attend a parent session.

Hence the objective and plan for the session must be clear and well planned in advance.

An example of a clear objective that was recently created and implemented in for the parents in our partner organization, NSTI Noida:

The objective for the session:

a) Increase Parent Involvement: Promote, facilitate, and enhance parent, student involvement in the educational program and further the career path.

(b) Kindle a healthy channel of communication for open discussion on career aspirations that can continue post the session.

Target Group that was defined

The parents of girls students from ITI/polytechnic.

Prep — Students Display

Artwork related to career sessions (e.g. wishtree)/ aspiration chart on display.
Letter to the parents: Students to make a personalized letter for their parents sharing their role model and their journey. This will also include the reason for choosing a specific role model and the support that they want from their parents.
Parents demographics collected as follows:

Parents and students discussing and penning down their aspirations

Communicate the agenda of the session clearly: There could be a sense of apprehension for parents to attend a session. “ What if my child has done something wrong, is there going to be a complaint against him/her?”. This thought might create fear in the minds of the parents. Hence the invite should be warm, friendly and state the objective. If the focus is on discussing the career path, introducing new life skill activities for students and so on, mention that in the invite to parents. One of our facilitators worked along with the students in the class to make handmade invites to the parents!

On the day of the session, start by addressing the parents and students by emphasizing on the agenda.. For example: “Thank you for taking the time off to meet up..we are here as a group to talk about career options for your children after they graduate…”

2. The Actual Session plan:

Once you have a clear objective then it will enable you as an educator to create a session plan that you want to facilitate and engage the parents with.

An ice breaker will, for instance, will help to create a rapport between the parents in the session.

1) What we have in common — Ice Breaker

The facilitator calls out a characteristic of people in the group, such as ‘having children’. All those who have children should move to one corner of the room.

As the facilitator calls out more characteristics, such as ‘likes football’, people with the characteristic move to the indicated space. You can continue this activity with several other choices.

Quiz: After the ice breaker session you can have a quiz session for the parents which will be fun and informative at the same time.

Example: Who is the founder of the School/Institute?

What is the name of the Principal?

What is the favorite subject of your child?

Briefly describe one key learning from the curriculum or book

The quiz questions should be prepared within the parents knowledge to understand and answer

2. Pop Quiz — Know your ITI/Polytechnic (10 mins)

Once the parents have assembled comfortably we try to do a small quiz them on how well they know the learning space. Can plan this with the students itself. What should their parents know about the institute? E.g. questions:

● How many trades are there in the Poly? -

● Who is the Principal? -

● Briefly describe the content of the trade their child is pursuing

Can end the quiz with a conversation by one of the institute trainer where they talk about how well the students are doing and how parents and teachers are the key support system.

3.About QA(20 min): Intro to Video about Quest, its work and brief placement strategy for next three months. Introducing BPO and retail as the most prospering sectors and why they should encourage their daughters to opt for it as a career alternative.

4. Experience sharing(10 mins) This includes working alumni sharing their experience of being in a job and how have they felt after getting the first salary. Also discussing how have they negotiated with the family to be in a job. This can also include Quest alumni video triggers.

If possible, invite parents of the alumni too so as to share their feelings. Can identify the parents as super parents for being so supportive and understanding.

5. Main Activity 1 (20 mins)

Know your child — Activities which parents and children do together.

One is where the parents talk to their children and try to understand their aspirations from them and then draw it with their children on a chart paper. All the drawings are then put together as a display. Then a conversation is had with the parents on what is their role to support their children in their aspirations.

6. Main Activity 2 (20 mins)

Form two groups one with only parents and other with the students. Parents can discuss and come up with: (1) What is that one question you would like to ask from your children in context of their career? (2) What are the risks and fear for your child’s future? Students can discuss and come up with: What is that one question that you would like to know from your parents regarding your career which you are afraid to ask?

This can be put on a Commitment chart or written on the Board.

7. Feedback and Closing (20 mins)

With the idea of ‘Collaborating for Success’

Re-visit the commitments

Distribute and collect Feedback forms.

DEVISING ACTIVITIES:

This is one of the most crucial elements. The activity should have a strong message and be meaningful. Here are two impactful activities that have been tried out in one of our centres

Form two groups one with only parents and other with the students. Parents can discuss and come up with: (1) What is that one question you would like to ask from your children in the context of their career? (2) What are the risks and fear for your child’s future? Students can discuss and come up with: 1) What is that one question that you would like to know from your parents regarding your career which you are afraid to ask?

1. Moderation of this session is very important as it may bring up some points that students/parents are not comfortable answering. Bowls can be kept where the questions can be dropped off by parents and students and one can anonymously read out questions to addressing it to the larger group

Know your child — Activity which parents and children do together. ( approx 20 mins)

The parents talk to their children and try to understand their aspirations from them and then draw it with their children on a chart paper. All the drawings are then put together as a display. This is followed by a conversation with the parents on their role to support their children in their aspirations.

2.Include video/short films (10 to 15 minutes): Videos can be used to reflect and drive a conversation and make the session interactive. The video you choose can be about topics like “career choices”, “development of self because of career” or “Success defined by the right education“. The videos chosen should be thought-provoking should be a good conversation starter, and stir the discussion in the interest of education and career development.

examples: Mansi’s dream’s and career goals

Bridging the Gap

3.Sharing Experience — parents, and students: Testimonials come to a long way in instilling faith in the parents. At one of Quest Alliance’s centers, we had alumni who had graduated from the course sharing their experience. They spoke about how life changed after getting their first job and the joy they experienced when they received their first salaries!

Experiences sharing can be a powerful way of instilling confidence in parents by allowing them to interact with alumni students/their parents. Plan these invites in advance if you plan on inviting speakers.

These Alumni parents who are referred by us as “Super Parents” offer to help and guide the parents of the new batch of students by sharing their life experiences and betterment in standards of living after their child got placed in a job. This also enables a sense of community amongst the parents, where one helps the other.

4.Prepare the environment for the session: Make a list of items/stationary you will require for the session — like chart paper, pens, pencils, projector screen, paper and so on depending on the activities you have planned. It’s important that the venue is easily accessible to all and to make it more hospitable include coffee, snacks that can be served during breaks.

4.The commitment chart: Once the session is completed, the parents are required to sign “the commitment chart” The chart is prepared by the educator based on all the discussions and assurances made by the parents. This closing activity simply reinforces all that they have discussed or promised to deliver. The chart is then handed over the institution.