Perceptions of Family Engagement and Support in SWIFT Schools

Recent research and federal legislation highlight the importance of family engagement and support. However, meaningful and effective family engagement does not always come to fruition in public schools. Developing and maintaining relationships with families can be especially challenging in an inclusive school setting, given the difficulty of blending general and special education requirements, policies, and practices. The purpose of this research was to investigate (a) the relationship between families' perceived support in 32 schools implementing the Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation (SWIFT) framework, a product of a federally funded technical assistance center; and (b) the degree to which the SWIFT framework was implemented with fidelity in these schools. Results of multilevel modeling indicated that, with the exception of the Inclusive Policy Structure and Practice domain, SWIFT implementation significantly and positively predicted families' perceptions of parent support. This finding suggests that effective implementation of the SWIFT framework can predict parents' participation in and shared information about child progress or school activities.