This handbook is designed to help parents through the process of preparing themselves and their children for the challenges that lie ahead. It may not answer all the questions but it will highlight most of the common ones and those that I deem essential. It was inspired as a result of what I, as a parent, went through in the transition to an alternate educational experience with my own children.

The CRAF-E4 Family Engagement Model: Building Practitioners' Competence to Work with Diverse Families lays out how mental health practitioners can best engage parents in their children's education for the child's best educational outcome. The book presents several different engagement strategies, allowing for differences in socio-political, cultural, and parental beliefs and understandings. Topics include information from early childhood, family processes, efficacy, racial socialization, a...