Family Engagement Advisory Group

May 21, 2025

Family Engagement Advisory Group – January–June 2025 Report

The group met 2-3 times this reporting period.

After reviewing the current PLA Strategic Plan, please tell us:

We worked to schedule four family engagement posts for social media on a monthly basis, a project that we started as a committee last year. Followers enjoyed seeing activities from our various libraries. This project targets transformation, professional growth, and advocacy and awareness as our posts will hopefully encourage other library staff to implement and/or start highlighting their family engagement activities.

Task force members also submitted a conference proposal to the 2026 PLA Conference entitled “Meeting the Needs of Your Committee Through Family Engagement.”

Do you see opportunities to better align committee work with those goals?
No

Look for opportunities to present about Family Engagement in the library community.

What specific activities will this committee undertake over the next six months to support that alignment? (July–December reporting period only)

Are there other PLA or ALA committees whose partnership and collaboration would accelerate meeting PLA strategic goals?
There are elements of this committee that would pair well with ALSC’s Early and Family Literacy Committee.

Is there anything else about your committee experience you’d like to share?
No

Submitted by Lisa Mulvenna and Emily Sedgwick on 05/21/2025

December 11, 2024

Family Engagement Advisory Group – July–December 2024 Report

The group met 1 time this reporting period.

After reviewing the current PLA Strategic Plan, please tell us:

We are working to schedule family engagement posts for social media on a monthly basis, a project that we started as a committee last year. Followers enjoyed seeing activities from our various libraries. This project targets transformation, professional growth, and advocacy and awareness as our posts will hopefully encourage other library staff to implement and/or start highlighting their family engagement activities.

Do you see opportunities to better align committee work with those goals?
No

What specific activities will this committee undertake over the next six months to support that alignment? (July–December reporting period only)

Is there anything else about your committee experience you’d like to share?
No

Submitted by Lisa Mulvenna and Emily Sedgwick on 12/11/2024

May 22, 2024

Committee on Family Engagement – January–June 2024 Report

The group met 2-3 times this reporting period.

After reviewing the current PLA Strategic Plan, please tell us:

Describe the current work of this committee and how it supports our strategic goals. Include work accomplished, decisions made, and any recommended follow-up actions.
Integrating the four pillars of the 2022-2026 PLA Strategic Plan, not only did we meet to get work done to support families, we met to connect and encourage each other in our work as Librarians. 3. We continued the work of creating family engagement posts for social media on a monthly basis. Followers were able to see such ideas as a T-Rex Tea Party, Shamrocks and Shenanigans program, and family cooking programs. A May and a June post are still upcoming. This project targets transformation, professional growth, and advocacy and awareness as our posts will hopefully encourage other library staff to implement and/or start highlighting their family engagement activities.
We started a project of reviewing content from the past Advancing Family Engagement in Libraries courses to make suggestions as to how PLA could repackage the material for asynchronous learning. This project targets transformation and professional growth.

Do you see opportunities to better align committee work with those goals?
No

What recommendations do you have for in-coming committee members? Are there particular streams of
work in progress to be carried over into the new committee year? (January–June reporting period only)
This committee will be moving to advisory status for the next year. The social media posts are relatively easy to do and are a way to highlight different ways that libraries are doing family engagement work in their communities. We also recommend that the advisory group continue any reviewing of past Advancing Family Engagement course content that is not completed by the end of June and make suggestions to PLA as to what content would be useful so that training can be shared more widely. PLA has also been awarded an IMLS grant to target family engagement in Spanish speaking populations. While work did not begin on that before the year ended, this group would be a great resource for the cohort group.

We are fortunate to have one returning co-chair and one past committee member becoming the other co-chair to help with the transition of this work, along with some returning committee members and the opportunity for new committee members to keep the conversation and the work fresh, representative, and open.

What specific activities will this committee undertake over the next six months to support that alignment? (July–December reporting period only)

Is there anything else about your committee experience you’d like to share?
No

Submitted by Lisa Mulvenna and Linda Noyce on 05/22/2024

January 4, 2024

Committee on Family Engagement – January–June 2024 Report

The group met 2-3 times this reporting period.

After reviewing the current PLA Strategic Plan, please tell us:

Describe the current work of this committee and how it supports our strategic goals. Include work accomplished, decisions made, and any recommended follow-up actions.
The committee has started posting monthly on PLA’s social media and highlighting a family engagement activity (first post-12/19/23 on Instagram). This project targets transformation, professional growth, and advocacy and awareness as our posts will hopefully encourage other library staff to implement and/or start highlighting their family engagement activities.

Do you see opportunities to better align committee work with those goals?
No

What recommendations do you have for in-coming committee members? Are there particular streams of
work in progress to be carried over into the new committee year? (January–June reporting period only)
This committee is moving to an Advisory status for next year. It would be great if they could continue the social media posting project, even if it is a part of the IMLS grant process.

What specific activities will this committee undertake over the next six months to support that alignment? (July–December reporting period only)

Are there other PLA or ALA committees whose partnership and collaboration would accelerate meeting PLA strategic goals?
If this committee were staying in its current form, it would pair well with ALSC’s Early and Family Literacy committee.

Is there anything else about your committee experience you’d like to share?
No

Submitted by Lisa Mulvenna and Linda Noyce on 01/04/2024

June 7, 2023

Committee on Family Engagement – January–June 2023 Report

The group met 4-6 times this reporting period.

After reviewing the current PLA Strategic Plan, please tell us:

Describe the current work of this committee and how it supports our strategic goals. Include work accomplished, decisions made, and any recommended follow-up actions.
Following up on the Social-Emotional Learning webinar series planned and presented by the committee in fall of 2022,
Cornell University's Bronfenbrenner Center was contacted to discuss family engagement within the ecological system and potential webinar series. With four sessions focusing on the fundamentals of social-emotional learning (emphasis on the CASEL model) and practical applications of social-emotional learning including wellness and yoga, the webinar series supported the following areas of PLA's Strategic Plan: professional growth and transformation. With regards to professional development, we provided the latest social emotional research and real life application. Our work supports transformation by helping professionals translate social emotional learning within the community they serve and keeping libraries relevant in a post-pandemic world. Co-chair Zachary Stier became a liason an IMS Advisory Group for the Enriching Library Family Programming Using the Smithsonian Institution's Tall with Me Toolkits. Finally, Cornell University's Bronfenbrenner Center was contacted to discuss family engagement within the ecological system and potential webinar series.

Do you see opportunities to better align committee work with those goals?
One area we could see committee work better align with the strategic goals is advocacy and awareness. Specifically, it is important to continue to advocate for family engagement as a key foundation for PLA's role and responsibility in empowering librarians. We would like to see the committee focus on EDISJ more in the future as well. Multigenerational programming is an impactful way to reach a diverse community.

What recommendations do you have for in-coming committee members? Are there particular streams of
work in progress to be carried over into the new committee year? (January–June reporting period only)
This is a great time to begin working on new projects. In this reporting period, we wrapped up projects that began last year, and the committee is ready to move forward with new ideas and plans. We discussed some content creating ideas, with committee members providing content for social media posts, blogs, etc. For in-coming committee members it will be important for them to have an orientation about the committee. It might be a good idea to create a brief video welcoming them to the committee and discuss its goals and how they align with the PLA's strategic plan. In addition, it is recommended that the incoming co-chairs meet with new committee members to get to know them and what they envision for the committee moving forward.

What specific activities will this committee undertake over the next six months to support that alignment? (July–December reporting period only)

Are there other PLA or ALA committees whose partnership and collaboration would accelerate meeting PLA strategic goals?
We would like to see the committee continue to work with other arms of ALA, such as ALSC and YALSA to further the committee’s reach and expertise.

Is there anything else about your committee experience you’d like to share?
It has been a wonderful year and we look forward to what lies ahead for the committee and its members.

Submitted by Zachary Stier; Becky Shaknovich on 06/07/2023

September 3, 2021

Committee on Family Engagement – April–August 2021 Report

The group met 4-6 times this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Completed second cohort of the Advancing Family Engagement virtual classroom series of 8 sessions; to date the program has registered and taught about 120 library staff. Planned third cohort to launch in September 2021, with nearly 100 new registrants.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Leadership, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Second Activity
Oversaw PLA’s IMLS grant, “Exploring a program co-design approach to better serve and engage low-income, Latinx communities” which conducted a literature review, national survey, and planned focus groups at three pilot libraries.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice

Third Activity
Requested board approval to move from task force to standing committee, and in doing so revised our charge and added liaisons to ALSC, YALSA, and AASL.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Organizational Excellence

Fourth Activity
Initiated a new grant partnership with WGBH Boston to develop tools on computational thinking to be used in libraries and other education settings (“Fostering Joint Parent/Child Engagement in Preschool Computational Thinking by Leveraging Digital Media, Mobile Technology, and Library Settings in Rural Communities (WAISL)”)
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Transformation

Fifth Activity
Continued to liaison to multiple groups: helped PBS Kids write blog posts for Public Libraries Online; designated a reviewer for the National Association of Family, School and Community Engagement’s new family engagement body of knowledge guidelines; worked with the National Center for Families Learning on its fall 2021 library-focused webcast; and collaborated with PLA’s Project Outcome to write an informational brief on measuring family engagement programs.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Leadership, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
Launching the third cohort of the Advancing Family Engagement series; planning the fourth cohort to launch in early 2022; strengthening relationships with ALSC, YALSA and AASL

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
No

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
The Advancing Family Engagement series has yielded many new examples of family engagement programs and strategies, both via presenters and also from “final projects” that the second cohort of learners developed. These could contribute to a new PLA publication, such as an “Ideabook 2.”

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
As noted above, ALSC, YALSA and AASL

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
No

Submitted by Jo Giudice, Ashley Brown on 09/03/2021

August 31, 2020

Family Engagement Task Force – September–March 2020 Report

The group met 4-6 times this reporting period.

Recent Activities

First Activity
The committees first activity was to organize and plan a half-day preconference session for PLA 2020. The focus this training opportunity was to help libraries learn how to engage library leadership in the importance of Family Engagement as a new and regular part of library programming endeavors. The diversity of panel speakers from size of library to gender and ethnicity was of the speakers was in alignment with PLA's vision. The committee moved away from speakers we see at every conference in an effort to keep the information fresh and engage those who may not have been active previously.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice, Leadership

Second Activity
The second activity that took the bulk of the committee's time and effort was the planning and fine-tuning of the subscription webinar Family Engagement learning series. Based on the PLAâs Family Engagement Framework, this new professional development activity will enable public library professionals to expand and refine their current family engagement programming and strategies. This subscription plan will consist of eight highly interactive virtual classroom sessions. Each one-hour session will be led by experienced facilitators from the PLA Family Engagement Task Force and other experts. Participants will also engage in small-group work and facilitated discussions with their peers.

In addition to the online classroom sessions, participants will receive access to a closed ALA Connect group through which they may network with their peers and interact with session facilitators outside of class time. Access to this page, which includes exercises, session recordings, and other resources, will be given for a one-year period to all paid registrants.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Leadership, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Third Activity
The PLA Family Engagement Task Force Partnered with Zero to Three to present a webinar. The webinar was titled Public Libraries: Vital Partners in Family Engagement.
Public libraries are accessible, offering diverse, intergenerational programming and serving families from low income homes at a high rate compared to other community providers. This session will enlighten new and experienced early childhood program staff, parents and others about the potential of public libraries and how they can collaborate with local public libraries as learning spaces and extend their own impact to engage families.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Leadership, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Fourth Activity
FE Task Force partnered with the National Center for Families Learning to present two sessions at their national conference, November 4-6 in Louisville, KY.
The first session was a webcast focused on ideas to engage families of diverse community groups and how libraries and public institutions can remove barriers to library access. It stressed that families are more likely to become engaged in their childrenâs learning when school and library staff reach out to them. This webcast was in partnership with the PLA and was sponsored by Better World Books.
The second session was a workforce development and family engagement session presented by Scott Allen (PLA), Ashley J. Brown (co-chair FE Task Force), and Gale (Baltimore Public Library). This session had over 50 attendees from the NCFL conference.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

Fifth Activity
The FE Task Force worked with Katie Campana, PhD, Assistant Professor in the School of Information at Kent State University to provide feedback and comments their white paper for PLA. While the library field has made good progress with encouraging computational thinking for older children and teens, it has not made as much progress with incorporating computational thinking into programs and services for young children and their families. The goal of the paper is to help library staff working with young children and families see the importance of computational thinking so they will hopefully start exploring how to incorporate and encourage it in their own programs. The paper provides a basic overview of computational thinking, why it is important for young children and their families, and a few examples of how it can be incorporated into library programs. The Task Force assisted with providing real-time programs currently taking place in libraries.
Meets PLA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Awareness, Organizational Excellence, Transformation

What will your group be working on for the next six months?
The FE Task Force will support and help implement a recent IMLS grant awarded to PLA and NCFL, âExploring a Program Co-design Approach to Better Serve and Engage Low-income, Latinx Communities.â The Task Force assist with the partner libraries who will develop and document methods for how library staff can support authentic Latinx parent participation in family engagement. This will engage parents in creating services designed for them in three (urban, suburban, and rural) locations. The intent is to generate strategies and practices for authentic parent participation and identify approaches and best practices that can be piloted on a national scale. The Task Force will also evaluate and refine the subscription webinar learning sessions and create a timeline for the next series to begin.

Does the group have any policy recommendations, ideas with financial impact, or other items to bring to the PLA Board for discussion or action
None at this time.

Do you have any suggestions for future products or resources (excluding conference programs) to be developed based on your group’s work?
We would like to see more programming at conference that highlights partnerships between libraries and the private sector that promote family engagement. Now more than ever we are creating and implementing programs to be done at home by the whole family unit in a way that we have never experienced before.

Are there other PLA/ALA committees your group might collaborate with to benefit the work of all?
We absolutely see the FE Task Force benefiting from connecting and working with the Leadership Development Committee as changes in programming structure must come down from the top of the hierarchy to be successful. We also see advantages to working with AASL, ALSC and YALSA to engage libraries who are solely focused on children and teens to recognize and expand on the value of programs that are multi-generational.

Have there been any issues related to meeting participation/attendance for any of the group’s members?
No

Is there anything PLA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
Scott Allen and Symone Villasenor have been essential in us being successful. We would like to thank them for their continued support and for always being patient with us. They listened, responded and helped us create a successful new learning environment to educate and promote family engagement services to a broader audience and promote awareness of the importance of adult services and children's services working side-by-side. The committee could not have been better supported and we look forward to continuing this work with Scott and Symone.

Submitted by Jo Giudice on 08/31/2020