Communitiy School Delft

Strong collaboration between parents and school staff is essential for children's development. Parents and school professionals need to work together to understand what children need to develop and learn. When this collaboration is ineffective, it can negatively affect children's opportunities and contribute to educational inequality.

For effective collaboration, parents and school staff need to know one another and understand what each can and cannot offer. This requires open and equal dialogue. This can sometimes be challenging for parents who are less familiar with the Dutch education and healthcare systems. Schools may also experience difficulties in establishing this dialogue.

The Role of Community School Delft

Since 2016, schools and organisations in Delft have worked together within the Community School. A community school brings together various organisations in the fields of health and wellbeing to support children and parents. Its aim is to promote children's development and increase their participation in society. Effective collaboration between parents and professionals from the different organisations is essential to achieving this.

The Community School focuses on areas such as support with parenting and learning, healthy lifestyles and a broad learning environment. It aims to strengthen the connection between home and school so that children feel safe and supported. However, it is still unclear how parents and schools believe this connection should be shaped. This research explores this question and aims to provide practical guidance for strengthening collaboration between parents and Community School staff.

Objective

This project explores parents' perspectives on collaboration with schools in supporting their children's development. What do they expect? What do they need? It also examines what is needed to strengthen collaboration between parents and the organisations within the Community School. The research includes both parents who are already actively involved and those who are not yet participating.

The central research question is: How can parents and professionals within the Community School work together more effectively to support children's development?

Method

The project begins with a review of the literature and good practices. The findings are discussed with the Community School partners and used to determine how the research in Delft will proceed.

At the same time, researchers engage with parents, both those who already participate in Community School activities and those who do not. Short conversations are conducted to understand why they do or do not participate and what they need. Professionals who have frequent contact with parents, such as internal support coordinators, pedagogical staff and youth workers, are also consulted.

Focus groups are then organised with parents, supplemented by individual interviews where necessary.

Following the focus groups, an initial analysis of the findings is conducted. The results are discussed during a joint meeting with parents, professionals and project partners. Participants are asked whether they recognise the findings, what improvements could be made and what actions would be appropriate. Their input is used to further refine the analysis.

Duration

The project started in December 2024 and ran until mid-2025.

Team

• Marion van de Sande
• Mirjam Heemskerk-van der Sprong
• Pepijn Rijff
• Suzanne Rutz

Collaboration

For this project, the Transforming Youth Care research group at The Hague University of Applied Sciences collaborated with:

• De Horizon Primary School
• Delft Foundation for Playgroups
• Delft voor Elkaar
• Youth Health Care Foundation South Holland West
• Municipality of Delft

Contact

Suzanne Rutz
[email protected]