Breakdowns in Home-School Collaboration for Behavioral Intervention

For some children, behavioral health services are critical in supporting their development and preventing adverse outcomes such as school dropout, substance use, or encounters with juvenile justice. Schools play an important role in identifying problem behavior and providing appropriate intervention, and these efforts are most effective when executed in collaboration with parents at home. However, home-school collaboration is difficult to achieve. In this work, we investigated lack of information sharing as a barrier to collaboration, through a qualitative study including observation, contextual inquiry, and interviews. We found that policies, processes, and tools for documenting behaviors in schools are implemented without significant consideration toward exchanging information with parents. Consequently, a lack of effective two-way information sharing tended to hinder collaboration and erode trust. Combining our empirical findings with evidence-based strategies for parent involvement, we discuss design opportunities for promoting collaboration toward positive behavioral outcomes for children.