Listening to Parents' Narratives: The Value of Authentic Experiences with Children with Disabilities and Their Families.

IntroductionTeacher preparation programs face significant challenges in providing teacher candidates with authentic experiences that emphasize the importance of family-school-community collaboration. Few teacher preparation programs provide strategies for encouraging parents' involvement in the education of their children or for initiating a sense of collaboration with families and the communities in which they live (Caspe, Lopez, Chu, & Weiss, 2011; Curran & Murray, 2008; Murray, Handyside, Straka, & Arton-Titus, 2013; Rodriguez-Brown, 2009). Epstein's (1987) theory of overlapping spheres of influence emphasizes that student academic success is best achieved through collaborative interaction among schools, families, and communities. Working together, these stakeholders are invested in socializing and educating children. Schools, families, and communities have the potential to promote more successful student outcomes (Sanders, 2006). Cook and Friend (2010) refer to collaboration as the style professionals use to interact with individuals that is based on mutual goals and parity, shared responsibility for primary decisions and accountability for outcomes, the creation of trust and respect, and a sense of community. The term family-school-community collaboration connotes the multidimensional nature of teacher, parent, and community interactions.This article describes the impact on the practice and disposition of teacher candidates resulting from the implementation of a program called Families as Faculty (FAF), which was collaboratively designed and implemented by a university in the southwestern U.S. and the statewide Parent Training and Information Center to address this gap. The FAF program stressed the importance of parent involvement in school settings using a pedagogical approach in which teacher candidates visited the homes of parents who had children with disabilities, listened to family narratives, and later reflected upon these visits. The FAF program provided teacher candidates authentic experiences with families and offered strategies for incorporating family engagement into teaching practices while placing parents and families in leadership roles. Such opportunities have the capacity to influence teacher candidates' perceptions toward parent involvement and to increase the value they place on collaboration (Campbell, Gilmore, & Cuskelly, 2003). Supportive relationships between schools and families have long been considered vital in providing effective educational services and supports for children with disabilities (Colarusso & O'Rourke, 2007). Numerous studies have documented that positive relationships between schools and parents are associated with enhanced academic achievement and overall student success for children, including children with disabilities (Cook & Friend, 2010; Dallmer, 2004; McDuffie, Mastropieri, & Scruggs, 2009). Research has also shown that teacher-initiated encouragement of parent participation is a critical factor in developing and sustaining collaborative home-school relationships (Ferrara & Ferrara, 2005; Green, Walker, Hoover-Dempsey, & Sandler, 2007; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005). In education, there are numerous definitions of parent involvement. In this article, we refer to parent involvement as "parent interactions with schools and with their children to promote academic success" as defined by Hill et al. (2004, p. 1491). Please note that the terms parent involvement, parent participation, and parent engagement are used somewhat interchangeably throughout this article to connote equivalency in meaning.The importance of collaborative home-school relationships for parents of children with disabilities was recognized in 1975 with the passage of the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (currently known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, 2005). Over the course of four decades, the U.S. Congress has continued to mandate an emphasis on parent participation and family engagement in meeting the educational needs of every child, including children with disabilities. …