The National Center for Families Learning (NCFL) works to eradicate poverty through education solutions for families. Partnering with educators, school districts, community-based organizations, libraries,literacy advocates, and policymakers, NCFL develops and provides multigenerational programming, professional development, community development, and digital resources that empower families to recognize their strengths and achieve their goals. Since 1989, we have supported of millions of families across the country as they've changed their lives through education, leadership, advocacy, and workforce training. Engaging multiple generations from the same family has been a fundamental and distinguishing aspect of our work, because we know this holistic approach creates a stronger impact and greater success for families. In addition to our community-based programs and professional development systems across the country, our digital properties, like Wonderopolis. org and the National Literacy Directory (NLD. org), are utilized by millions of families each year.

All of our work is focused on building capacity and creating equitable opportunities for families. This is not done in isolation or through a cookie-cutter approach. What works in one community may not be best in a different location, and it takes a team of local partners and service providers to create the greatest impact. With this in mind, NCFL operates a network of Family Learning Communities, each with different offerings tailored to a location’s unique needs and situations. Major strategies we utilize are: MULTI-GENERATIONAL LEARNING: Through partnerships with schools, libraries, community-based organizations, and other programs in communities across the country, parents and caregivers learn alongside their children, both in-person and virtually. We concurrently build the skills of the parents and caregivers as well as empower them with the tools to and confidence to engage in their children's education. PARENT LEADERSHIP: Parent leadership programs are designed to activate the leadership skills of parenting adults by encouraging them to become engaged advocates for their community and organize to make a powerful, impactful change on education issues. CROSS-SECTOR COALITIONS: Community coalitions are comprised of organizations and local residents who seek to serve as catalysts for systemic change around issues that most impact family well-being. NCFL supports cross-sector collaborative efforts to meet the goal of building comprehensive family learning systems that are embedded at various levels in a community. FAMILY ENGAGEMENT IN EDUCATION: Family engagement programming includes multi-generation learning opportunities, events, activities, and strategies that support children’s academic achievement and sometimes parent education. CO-DESIGNING: To truly meet the needs of the community for which services or resources are created, we collaborate with community members and key stakeholders to provide input on those services and resources. FAMILY SERVICE LEARNING: The NCFL Family Service Learning model combines family learning with service learning in an effort to build stronger communities by fostering leadership and advocacy skills for families. Through the NCFL Family Service Learning six-step process, families explore solutions to community issues, conduct root-cause analysis, develop advocacy skills, and solidify and sustain new community partnerships. LANGUAGE JUSTICE: Rather than just providing interpretation for the non-English speakers, language justice (simultaneous interpretation) encourages participants to speak in the language that best conveys their full ideas and expressions in their preferred language, providing interpretation for everyone, not just the non-English speakers. Language justice allows programs to benefit from the wisdom and experience of community leaders and parents who have in the past experienced language as a barrier to their leadership and voice.

We have a 31-year history of developing and implementing family learning strategies and practices that bring real-world results to families and communities. We meet our goals through the following capabilities: MODEL PROGRAMMING: NCFL has identified a three-tiered approach to family engagement: Tier 1–Community-wide Family Engagement initiatives; Tier 2–Family Learning model; Tier 3–Place-based Family Literacy. This tiered approach coincides with the intensity and duration of services needed and desired by families and is driven by their family, academic, and community-focused goals. The models within the tiers are designed to make a significant difference for families to achieve economic stability and build their social capital. Built out of three decades of ground-level work with families, the models are based on evidence, founded in results from third-party evaluations and research projects, and informed by knowledge gained over time by listening to families and observing programs through technical assistance. The intervention spans community-wide impact to high individual impact for families, defined by the intensity and duration of services provided. It encompasses broad, community-wide initiatives and more targeted interventions through place-based programs. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: NCFL helps family literacy and learning practitioners to authentically engage with families by providing the latest in professional development and best practice expertise. NCFL offers a range of on-site professional development trainings, facilitated online courses, and blended learning opportunities to support family learning and literacy practitioners across family engagement, early childhood education, adult education, and support for English learners. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: Community Development involves the recruitment and activation of local partners and organizations, working collectively to build comprehensive family learning systems. Our efforts seek to highlight local voices and support families in creating learning systems that foster an equitable and thriving neighborhood. NCFL promotes leadership through participatory democracy, economic opportunity, social justice, and equity. DIGITAL RESOURCES: NCFL offers a variety of engaging online resources to support multigenerational learning in the home. An example is award-winning website Wonderopolis. org, which has grown to become one of the most popular education sites in the world, boasting more than 2,000 unique Wonders of the Day® and over 50 million visitors since its debut. With multi-disciplinary content that aligns to Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the STEM Educational Quality Framework, and Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, teachers everywhere use Wonderopolis®’s daily Wonders to jumpstart their students' critical thinking. With the 2020 global pandemic, Wonderopolis has experienced significant growth in monthly users as students are learning from home.

NCFL contracts with independent research associates to establish indicators and collect data for measuring progress towards key activities, outputs, and outcomes of our work. Each year, our team uses this information to adjust and adapt our work with the goal of continuous improvement and achieving higher impact for families. The following are indicators we measure: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT • Number of coalition members • Number of coalition meetings held and attendance • Number of community events or trainings held and attendance • Number of participants enrolled in Parent Leadership Institutes and attendance • Number of parents who increased leadership and advocacy skills • Number of parents and youth who increased developmental relationships • Number of advocacy issues identified • Number of and identification of advocacy issues acted upon through Family Service Learning • Number of program families (adults + children/youth) participating in Family Service Learning projects • Number of non-program families participating in Family Service Learning projects • Number of hours completed for Family Service Learning projects • Number of program materials developed and disseminated PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: • Number of training programs created • Number of training workshops provided • Number of trainees attending workshops • Number of hours of training • Number of coaching sessions • Number and types of resources identified/recommended in coaching sessions • Number of trainees indicating high-level of satisfaction with training • Number of trainees indicating increased knowledge, skills and attitudes after training • Number of trainees indicating application of strategies and practices learned in training while on the job MODEL PROGRAMMING • Number of program sites • Number of program staff per site • Number of program materials developed and disseminated • Number of families (adults + children) attending programs • Rate of student attendance (K-12) per program/school year • Number of hours families participate in program components in comparison to number of program hours offered • Number of parents/guardians self-reporting increased engagement in children’s education/activities • Number and type of children’s education/activities in which parents engage • Number of parents/guardians self-reporting increased engagement with children’s teacher and/or school • Number and type of teacher and school engagement in which parents participate • Number of parents/guardians who gain employment or improve employment • Number of parents/guardians who improve English Language skills • Number of parents/guardians self-reporting increased self-efficacy • Number of parents/guardians self-reporting increased social capital • Number of parents/guardians self-reporting increased problem-solving skills • Number of children who are ready for kindergarten • Number of unique website visitors • Number of high-quality Family Literacy and Family Learning programs

In 2018, the U. S. Department of Education launched a multi-million dollar family engagement initiative to create 13 Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFECs). NCFL was selected to lead two SFECs, in Arizona and Nebraska, as well as serve as partner on two additional SFECs, Kentucky and Maryland/Pennsylvania. Now, NCFL is leading the creation of a national SFEC Network, which regularly convenes all 13 SFECs to form a community of practice that promotes knowledge-sharing through professional development, policy advocacy for family engagement systems in education, and increases public understanding of family engagement across the country through targeted communications. For 30 years, NCFL has partnered with the U. S. Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) to provide intensive, culturally responsive family literacy programs at 49 Bureau-funded schools located in 10 states, serving families in over 20 tribal communities. The FACE program has served over 20,500 families since 1990. Over 48,000 individuals have participated in the program, which includes nearly 26,000 children and over 22,000 adults. Significant results include: Elementary students score higher on reading and math assessments; FACE children with learning differences are better prepared for kindergarten; FACE children significantly increase their language development; and, increased parent engagement in learning. Wonderopolis. org, an award-winning website created by NCFL that cultivates student curiosity, added a powerful new tool in 2019—Microsoft’s Immersive Reader. NCFL became the first nonprofit to feature the new technology, which works to expand content accessibility through a variety of reading assistance features. With the help of Immersive Reader, Wonderopolis®’s content is now more accessible for users with visual impairments, reading disabilities, and for English language learners. NCFL also formed a partnership with Microsoft's Flipgrid, a free digital tool that allows teachers to create “grids” in order to facilitate video discussions, is used by millions of students, educators, and families. In 2020, NCFL was named a recipient of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Voices for Economic Opportunity Grand Challenge, which seeks to elevate diverse voices in order to broaden the conversation about the issues inhibiting economic mobility and generate deeper awareness along with actionable understanding. NCFL will develop and launch a podcast series that will highlight the remarkable stories of low-income, diverse families across the U. S. who have improved their communities through Family Service Learning. As we move forward, NCFL is working to adapt and evolve our in-person programming to the virtual space in order to serve more families.