Meaningful engagement   Youth engagement  Engagement grants

Family engagement is an ongoing process that includes families as active decision makers and equal partners at organizational and system levels.

Our path

Families are integrated as important partners on all our key projects and initiatives, through our family advisory council. 

Where we started

Our expertise with youth engagement was already well-established when we decided to start better tapping into the transformative power of family engagement and helping our sector to do the same. Building on the success of our youth engagement training, in 2012 we partnered with families to develop and deliver Bringing Family Engagement into Action. Later, we worked with Parents for Children’s Mental Health to develop a family engagement road map and resource guide, which was a valuable pre-cursor to our engagement quality standards work.

Where we are now

We set the bar for our sector with our co-developed provincial quality standard for family engagement (more on that below). Since its release, our engagement team has helped many organizations along their engagement journey at the organizational and system levels. This support continues through our engagement grants and engagement community of practice.

Where we are headed

Meaningful engagement will always be a guiding principle of our approach and remains a focus area of our work in our strategic plan for the years ahead. We currently provide guidance and support for youth and family engagement efforts for several multi-sectoral, system-level and provincial initiatives with mandates that stretch well into the coming years.

Quality standard for family engagement

The quality standard for family engagement describes eight principles that contribute to high-quality family engagement. The standard details background, rationale, best practices and practical approaches for each principle, and defines what each one means for families, agencies and decision makers.

Resources to support implementation

Implementing the quality standard for family engagement means more families are engaged in a more meaningful way, informing services and leading to better service experiences and outcomes. And we want to support implementation in any way we can! Check out the resources below and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us. Our team can connect you with one of our engagement specialists!

Developing core and implementation teams

Based on implementation science, this resource describes the purpose and structure of core teams and implementation teams. It was developed to support stakeholders, organizations, communities and systems in their initial efforts to implement the quality standard for family engagement.

Introduction video

This video is geared toward organizations and communities interested in implementing the quality standards for youth and family engagement. It’s intended to provide an orientation to the quality standards, including defining key terminology and introducing the principles. 

 Action planning templates

Action planning agenda template

This agenda template provides a sample plan and activities to support the core team to create an action plan. An action planning meeting could be a full-day meeting, or could be accomplished through several shorter meetings, as needed.

Project-based action plan template

Use the project-based action plan template to help identify how organizational milestones can be mapped onto corresponding quality statements to show how a project aligns with the quality standard for youth or family engagement — and how alignment can be enhanced. For help getting started, refer to the example project-based action plan.

Principles-based action plan template

Use the principles-based action plan template to help structure planning for activities drawing upon the best practices and principles of the quality standard for family engagement.