Family-Led Systems Change for Equity in Early Care and Education: A Critical Family Partnership Framework

Abstract

Families who experience structural marginalization are experts on how oppression manifests in their everyday lives and how systems reproduce inequities. They are often most motivated to transform systems for their liberation and, we argue, should be empowered to drive systems change. Yet, frameworks to guide such transformative, family-led efforts remain nascent. This article details the development of the Critical Family Partnership Framework through a community-based, Family-Centered Participatory Action Research (FCPAR) approach. Informed by critical intersectional theory and the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership, the framework was co-constructed over a yearlong project centering the voices of families from diverse cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, alongside practitioners and agency leaders in an early childhood system. Although developed in early childhood contexts, the framework holds broader relevance for those engaging in intersectional family science seeking to advance equity by transforming family-serving systems.