Five Resources to Kickoff Family Partnerships

Five icebreaker activities for deeper family engagement this year

Starting out on the right foot with hard-to-reach parents will pay dividends for the entire school year.

To overcome the challenge of creating new family partnerships, we've provided some virtual activities that allow for easy connections between staff and families to open the door to deeper and more trusting relationships.

Before enacting these activities, first, decide on a goal you want to achieve with family partnerships this year. This goal will serve as your “north star” to help prioritize your engagement efforts.

Activity 1: Survey families about their relationship with school

Create a survey asking families about the rhythms and norms at home. Panorama has an excellent guide and questionnaire.
Send the link to parents
Read their responses and reply to the families who completed the survey

Do it the ReachWell way:

Develop meaningful questions for your families
Create a form that translates for families
Send the form via app, email, and on your website all with one click
Review your results in a secure spreadsheet or via email notifications

Activity 2: Dinner with their child

Ask families to make dinner with their child
Give families tips to make the experience meaningful
Ask each family to provide a picture of what they made and what they learned

Tips for an impactful time making dinner:

Math: Talk about estimating and fractions while measuring
English: Engage with your child about the language of the recipe or ingredients
Reading: Ask your child to read the ingredients or encourage your child to find more information about one of the ingredients used
Science: Talk about how the food changed from the beginning of making dinner to the end

Do it the ReachWell way:

Send a broadcast message to your group announcing the activity
Encourage families to reply to your message with their questions
With permission, share the images with the whole class and send another broadcast message with a gallery of families’ dinners

Activity 3: Show and tell

Show and tell works for all ages
Ask students to work with their parents/guardians to find a picture or item at home that shares about their family or heritage

Do it the ReachWell way:

Two weeks before your show and tell presentations update it on your linked family calendar
One week before the event send a broadcast message to your group(s)
Send a chat to the families who are most challenging to reach, and tell them something new you learned about their student

Activity 4: Promote conversations with families

Provide a list of questions for families to have intentional conversations
Ask families to share about their experience

Do it the ReachWell way:

Update your resources page in the app with a list of intentional conversations
Send a broadcast message highlighting the resource and the link to intentional conversations
Ask students about their experiences
Use the conversations with your students to start conversations with inactive parents

Activity 5: Book of importance

Request students work with their family to pick out a book about their culture or their values
Have students bring the book to school and share how it represents their culture or values

Do it the ReachWell way:

Put the event in your linked family facing calendar
Share a resource of places to find free books online
Send a broadcast message reminding families about the event
Reach out to families after the event, and share something new you learned about their values or culture
Take advantage of this valuable moment to set you, your students, and your families up for a successful year!

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When Residents Don’t Trust You: How to Still Keep Them Safe and Informed

By Zuben Bastani • June 17, 2025

Government distrust is at an all-time high. Many residents are wary of sharing their personal information with public agencies, often due to fears of surveillance, spam, or data misuse. This hesitation is especially acute among low-income and unhoused individuals who frequently change phone numbers due to service lapses, making traditional outreach efforts ineffective. Most public communication systems fall short. They rely on platforms like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, which get lost in crowded inboxes. Social media, while pervasive, is designed to harvest data and push ads—not to protect user privacy. Even emergency alert systems often require residents to sign up and share their location, further eroding trust. Text messaging, often called the holy grail of communication, is no longer a guaranteed solution. People guard their phone numbers carefully, especially when interacting with the government. They fear being spammed or having their data sold. So how can agencies inform and protect the public without breaching their trust? A New Approach to Community Communication Using ReachWell's extensive experience and broad customer base, here are some recommendations to consider when engaging your community in a less intrusive yet more effective manner: Offer Communication Choices : Let residents decide how they want to receive information—whether it's through text, email, voice calls, app notifications, or a combination. This respects personal preferences and helps reduce message fatigue. Respect Anonymity : Not everyone wants to share personal contact details. Provide anonymous access to messages via public channels or apps that don’t require identifying information. Support Multilingual Access : Language should never be a barrier to safety or services. Translate messages into the primary languages spoken in your community, and consider text-to-speech options for low-literacy audiences. Allow Topic Subscription : Let people select specific topics or groups they care about. Targeted messages reduce noise and increase engagement. Minimize Data Collection : Collect only the data you truly need. Avoid tracking location or behavior unless absolutely necessary—and be transparent about what is collected and why. Ensure Accessibility : Meet or exceed accessibility standards (such as WCAG 2.2 AA compliance) so all residents, including those with disabilities, can access and understand public messages. These practices foster trust, improve message delivery, and help ensure no one is left out of important conversations—especially in moments of crisis or community need. Expanded Real-World Examples: Trusted by Diverse Communities El Paso County, CO (Colorado Springs area) uses ReachWell to distribute emergency alerts—including shelter-in-place orders and missing persons reports—in over 130 languages. Residents can receive alerts even without providing contact information. The Town of Carbondale, CO keeps its multilingual and low-literate residents informed of community events, social services, and public works projects using WCAG 2.2 AA-compliant messaging and text-to-speech capabilities—ensuring no one is left behind. Tucson, AZ : Child-Parent Centers, a Head Start provider, uses ReachWell to keep 500+ staff updated on safety alerts, training sessions, and HR notices across 130 languages—building internal trust through inclusive communication. Boulder County Housing Authority ensures ongoing connection with residents—even after their contact information changes—by sending updates about emergencies, upcoming maintenance, and resident services using ReachWell’s multilingual and anonymous outreach tools. Conclusion Building trust with residents starts with giving them control. When governments let people choose how they connect, what they receive, and in what language—trust grows. ReachWell is proving that communities can be kept safe and informed without sacrificing privacy or accessibility. When people don’t trust the system, it’s time to change the system. ReachWell is doing just that. BOOK A DEMO TODAY