Student Mental Health & The Power of Family Engagement

For students to thrive emotionally and academically, meaningful parent and caregiver involvement is essential. Jillian Kelton, Cartwheel’s Director of Learning and Engagement, moderated a session with three experts to discuss how schools can best engage families to support students’ mental health and academic needs:

Dr. Shadae Harris is a national engagement specialist and the CEO and president of Groundwork Consulting, which supports educators to create authentic engagement opportunities centered on the voices and experiences of families and communities. Prior to this work she was the Chief Engagement Officer for Richmond Public Schools in Virginia and has deep experience as a school leader. 

Cory McCarthy is the Chief of Student Support for Boston Public Schools. An accomplished educator, he centers systems and practices that lead to student achievement and continuous improvement through authentic connection. 

Magda Rodriguez is the Chief Operation Officer at Tenacity, a Boston-based program that pairs extracurricular athletic programming with literacy, tutoring, and mentoring programs to help build academic motivation and achievement.

Here are some of the key family engagement strategies they discussed:

‍Don’t Underestimate the ‘Ripple Effect’ 

Our panelists unanimously agreed that caregiver involvement positively impacts students and the broader school community—but you can’t treat it as an afterthought.

“We cannot be in the business of supporting students if we're not involving parents. As the most important and influential person in [a student’s] life, they are the ones who can help us to do our job better,” Rodriguez shared. Particularly in lowering rates of chronic absenteeism, which we know to be a nationwide area of concern.

“So often family engagement has been seen as something very different from teaching and learning,” shared Dr. Harris. In her prior role as Chief Engagement Officer for Richmond Public Schools, attendance and outcomes started to improve after they adopted an engagement mindset. “Prioritizing partnerships with caregivers, understanding the root causes of barriers, and making sure families felt seen and valued—that shift had a ripple effect.” She said that they had to acknowledge that they didn’t have an attendance problem. They had a relationship problem. 

McCarthy echoed the sentiment: “We cannot separate child from family, family from child. Everyone needs a system of support.”  

Shifting the Mindset of Educators

With many educators already stretched to capacity, relationship building must be made a core focus. “We have to move beyond isolated practices. Engagement isn't an add-on. It's integrated into the system to truly support your students and families,” Dr. Harris said.      

Families need to be a central part of education because families are a core part of a student's life—it’s problematic that this often lives outside of an educator’s remit, Mr. McCarthy shared. “I challenge educator prep programs because, typically, they teach our educators to be very technical in a child's education.”

He acknowledged that it’s hard to shift the conversation from metric achievement, but treating educators who students and families really engage with as assets, as leaders, goes a long way. “Relationship work leads to academic outcomes, whether it’s an A+ student or a D+ student.”

To make this easier, consider sharing the load. “There is a lot of power when we bring parents to be leaders within our organization, within our schools,” Rodriguez said. Caregivers are an essential touchpoint to connect cultures and communities to enhance the work educators do.  

Removing Barriers to Mental Health Support

With generational and cultural stigma associated with mental health support, giving families the tools to understand why it’s important is the first step to breaking down existing barriers. 

“We have to remember that mental health wasn’t viewed in the same way that it is now when caregivers were in school,” said McCarthy. Back then, mental health was something you just had to tough out. “So it's really about educating the caregivers in this journey and supporting them through that.”

“Solving this requires sustained trust building,” Dr. Harris added. “It means ensuring practices that affirm differences and that honor the diverse backgrounds and experiences of caregivers. You're empowering both educators and families to do this work as genuine partners.”

“Often, families don’t know that resources exist, let alone how to access them,” Rodrigez shared. And, even if they do try to access them, waitlists and costs can be barriers to care. “Many parents have been trying to access mental health for their kids and even for themselves. Sometimes they've been on waiting lists for six months to a year.” 

McCarthy shared that Boston Public Schools partners with Cartwheel to provide mental health support via teletherapy to provide these critical mental health services to students and families. He added, “It is expensive to be healthy. We have to help [caregivers] recognize there is a problem and then show them the route towards support that is affordable.”

“If we have the right conversations. If we destigmatize how we look at mental health in our community, we could truly, truly land in a place where there is recognition.” ‍

Building Family Engagement Into Your Strategic Plan

Incorporating engagement into a school’s culture and climate means building relationships into your strategic plan. “When you position it as essential, and educators are supported with strong examples, the results really were transformative,” Dr. Harris shared. 

She recalled setting up an engagement dashboard during her time at Richmond Public Schools. When home visits increased by 70%, “we saw a significant decrease in chronic absenteeism,” she said. “We made sure that engagement practices were part of this everyday work and then tied them to measurable outcomes.” 

At Boston Public Schools, “we help our families understand that they are part of the solution by inviting them into spaces that school traditionally does not exist—after school at night, online, Saturday afternoon at church,” McCarthy shared.

Some strategic tips from our panelists: 

1. Make home visits a priority—they help increase attendance and build trust in the community.

2. Create multiple opportunities for positive communication throughout the year and identify opportunities for support.
   
   
3. Involve caregivers in school events, whether it’s resource fairs or strategic planning, let families have a voice.

4. Measure engagement, not just attendance, which will help educators realize that relationships are an essential part of school outcomes.

“Effective family engagement is not a one-time event. It has to be continuous. It has to be intentional, and it has to be centered on building trust and relationships,” Dr. Harris added. “I'm going to say something controversial, y'all, but I got to tell you: family engagement must be anchored in love.” 

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