The DIGItal innovative Strategies for PArental and Civic Engagement (DIGI-S.PA.C.E) was a three-year (August 2019-August 2022) Erasmus+ funded project involving partners in the United Kingdom (UK), Portugal, Italy and Lithuania.  The project (Grant Agreement Number: 2019-1-UK01-KA201-061451) developed innovative ways to engage parents in the education life of their child/children with the general objectives of preventing early school leaving, social exclusion and poor learning outcomes through proactive parental engagement.  Four Intellectual Outputs (IOs) were delivered by the partners as follows:

1. A training kit for school staff and Parent Support Advisors
2. A protocol for parental engagement
3. A training kit to enhance parenting skills
4. A  DIGI-S.PA.C.E. App to facilitate teacher-parent communication

Research surrounding parental engagement, also referred to as parental involvement, parental participation and parent-teacher partnerships, has gained increased interest worldwide (e.g. Garvis et al. 2022; Phillipson and Garvis, 2019) and how best this activity can be nurtured to improve children’s educational outcomes.  It is generally acknowledged that teacher-parent collaboration has a positive influence on children’s learning (Stroetinga et al., 2019).  Fulltime teachers in the 2018 TALIS survey reported 2.9% of their time was spent communicating with parents and guardians and 36.3% of teachers considered addressing parent or guardians as a source of ‘quite a bit’ or ‘a lot’ of stress (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2021:143). Reasons contributing towards the lack of monitoring and strategy towards parental/carer participation includes a lack of clarity into how to conceptually define parental involvement and engagement.  Goodall and Montgomery (2014) propose and develop a continuum between parental involvement with schools, at one end, and parental engagement with children’s learning at the other.  Research undertaken by Harris and Goodall (2008) and Sime and Sheridan (2014) suggests parents’ engagement in their child’s education is significant in terms of their learning and levels of attainment. The debates are ongoing into what constitutes parental/carer participation and whether it is being undertaken to improve scholarly outcomes or a child’s overall experience of school life (Education Endowment Foundation, 2022). The experiences of staff and parents/carers involved in parent/carer co-creation participation initiatives is not so widely reported.

Using Goodall and Montgomery’s (2014) concepts of involvement as “the act of taking part in an activity or event, or situation” (ibid., p399) and engagement as “the feeling of being involved in a particular activity or a formal arrangement to meet someone or to do something, especially as part of your public duties” (ibid. p400), DIGI S.P.A.C.E piloted co-creation as a process to re-imagine how parents/carers, school staff and communities could work together to co-create both training, strategy and parental/ carer participation projects. 

A Parent Support Advisor (PSA) was identified as part of the project (IO1) in each school/kindergarten to facilitate more effective engagement between parents, teachers, and the wider community.  A training kit (IO3), designed by teacher participants, resulted in 9 training modules. The PSA and participating teachers were trained using 4 of the modules to facilitate further training in their respective schools/kindergartens.  

Drawing upon the experiences of teachers and education professionals participating in the DIGI S.P.A.C.E Parental/ Carer Participation project, this presentation evaluates the value and impact of co-creating processes and training to support the development of effective parental/carer engagement in schools one year on after project completion.

Using a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, the project involved each country developing an area of parental participation which was identified as a specific need in each partner primary school or kindergarten, and which was developed through a process of co-creation within their own school community and their families but also with educators from partner countries. Creating new approaches through the lens of an action research project (Tossavainen, 2017), mobilised DIGI S.P.A.C.E partners to reconsider the training and supervision needs of those involved. Ethical approval for the research was gained from Staffordshire University, UK, in 2019. The research which was underpinned by BERA’s (2018) ethical principles and adhered to by all participating countries. An initial needs analysis was carried out in 2019 with schoolteachers, parents and stakeholders in the four countries. This informed the protocol for parental engagement and development of the training modules based on parent, teacher and school needs (Pugh et al. 2020). Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2022) of the needs analysis data led to the project design of a series of training modules, 9 in total, for parents and teachers. The Kirkpatrick model of evaluation (Kirkpatrick and Kayser- Kirkpatrick 2014) was modified for the analysis of the training modules and the impact of the training modules on teachers and parents. Level descriptors used in the model were; Reaction, Learning, Behaviour, and Results to determine participant reactions, knowledge, individual enrichment, and impact on the organisation. The focus of these levels centred around participant self-assessment of learning and experiences. Data were collated in a focus group using a semi-structured interview for the focus group was designed to give an opportunity to elaborate on individual and collective experiences (Kara, 2015). Questionnaires were conducted one year after the project formal completion to garner additional reflections associated with the ongoing impact of the project in each country. Additional ethical approval was sought and granted in 2023 for the follow up questionnaires. Qualitative data from the focus group and questionnaire a year later were analysed using Braun and Clarke (2022) thematic framework to draw together themes of interest across all countries. It was also used to highlight areas of individual country difference to celebrate and respect cultural identities, and how collectively schools and communities came together to enhance education for primary aged children.

Findings from the teacher focus group interviews revealed that by having an opportunity to learn more about the principles of co-creation and participation, partner schools began to appreciate the civic value in parental participation activities and began to identify the wider community benefits of such approaches. Teachers and PSAs also reported that increased awareness of the range of parental participation activities around Europe and hearing about the experiences first-hand from an educator’s perspective made them more aware of the need for bespoke training and support for school staff working in this field. The follow-up study a year later revealed how well established some schools had become in implementing training for parents and teachers utilising the PSA relationship. A communication channel between the school, teachers and parents was established through the PSA and has been successful in reducing barriers to parental engagement. This was noted through reflection from teachers and parents on how a greater understanding and respect for each other and the roles they held facilitated closer working relationships and a greater collaboration for the child’s learning and educational progress. The DIGI- S.PA.CE project’s findings are of interest to those involved in teacher training and teacher Continuing Professional Development (CPD). However, they also show how primary schools/kindergartens could benefit from learning more about family involvement and engagement in other sectors and how parent/ carer participation projects should be identified as part of community-wide civic engagement strategies.

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