FACE

St Joseph's Catholic School Parents and Friends (P&F) Association transitioned into a Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Group at the beginning of the 2023 School Year. This group focuses on the engagement of parents and family members into the school.

Family engagement is an interactive process through which staff and families, family members, and their children build positive and goal- orientated relationships. It is a shared responsibility of families and professionals that requires mutual respect for the roles and strengths each has to offer. Family engagement means doing with - not doing to or for - families. Family engagement involves parents' engagement with their children  and with staff as they work together toward the goals that families choose for themselves and their children.

Children are at the heart of meaningful family engagement. They are the inspiration for positive, goal-oriented, parent-provider relationships.

This format, which comes under the Catholic School Parents Queensland association (which also oversees P&F) is based on the following principles:

• All families and schools wans the best for their children;
• All children have the right to the opportunity to reach their full potential;
• Families are the first and continuing educators of their children;
• Effective schools provide a nurturing and supportive learning environment;
• Families and schools value quality teaching and respect teachers professional expertise;
• Families and schools alie the diversity of families and use this as a resource for building partnerships and communities;
• Family-school partnerships are based on mutual responsibility, respect and trust;
• Leadership is critical to building, maintaining and renewing partnerships;
• Family-school partnerships improve student motivation and learning;
• Family-school partnerships strengthen the connections between schools and their communities;
• Partnerships can involve all organisations that support families and schools;
• It is a team, responsible for planning, organising, implementing and evaluating activities;
• Support networks, to enable the community to share ideas, issues and best practice;
• Skills building for families to build their capacity to support their children's learning at school and at home.

Parents, Carers and Family members are encouraged to join our FACE meetings each term.