OST LI Training 2025-26

Keeping it Real in Family Partnership is a storytelling project that hopes to inspire conversations about how Cambridge out-of-school time practitioners and families from diverse cultural backgrounds partner to best support our children. Stories highlight promising practices and explore the experiences of families and OST practitioners. Each story is paired with a set of guiding questions to help you go deeper in reflecting on how families and OST practitioners can create more meaningful partnerships.  To support you in using these digital videos with your staff, we added an addendum to our UPDATED Facilitator's Guide.  If you would like to request credit for watching and reflecting on the essential messages from these videos on your professional development, you can click here to complete a reflection assignment and submit a request.  

Keeping it Real in Family Partnership is a storytelling project that hopes to inspire conversations about how Cambridge out-of-school time practitioners and families from diverse cultural backgrounds partner to best support our children. Stories highlight promising practices and explore the experiences of families and OST practitioners. Each story is paired with a set of guiding questions to help you go deeper in reflecting on how families and OST practitioners can create more meaningful partnerships.  To support you in using these digital videos with your staff, we added an addendum to our UPDATED Facilitator's Guide.  If you would like to request credit for watching and reflecting on the essential messages from these videos on your professional development, you can click here to complete a reflection assignment and submit a request.  

Must commit to all sessions March 31, April 7th

Must commit to all sessions March 31, April 7th
Register here

Building authentic, trusting, and equitable partnerships with families is essential to supporting student success. This interactive session, facilitated by Debbie Bonilla, explores strategies and mindsets that strengthen family engagement through an equity-centered lens. Participants will examine how cultural humility, inclusive communication, and collaborative decision-making create more meaningful connections between schools, programs, and the families they serve.
Through reflection, real-world scenarios, and practical tools, attendees will learn how to recognize and remove common barriers to engagement, honor diverse family strengths, and create welcoming environments where every voice is valued. By the end of the workshop, participants will walk away with actionable practices they can implement immediately to deepen family partnerships and promote equitable outcomes across their communities.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Identify key components of equitable family engagement and explain why they are essential for student success.
• Recognize common barriers that prevent families from fully engaging with schools and programs, and analyze how inequities show up in family–school interactions.
• Apply culturally responsive and inclusive communication strategies to build trust and deepen relationships with families from diverse backgrounds.
• Develop action-oriented practices that honor family strengths, elevate family voice, and foster collaborative decision-making.
• Reflect on their own biases and assumptions and assess how these influence their approach to family engagement.
• Create a plan to implement more equitable and accessible family engagement practices in their own school or organizational context.