The family is a critical context for youth development. Whether it is through neighborhood, school, or activities, families are critical to determining which spaces youth are accessing and in which spaces they are learning. Some of these determinations are intentional, such as when a parent registers a child to participate in an activity; other determinations are unintentional, such as a neighborhood highway prevents a child from getting to an afterschool activity. Families are also responsible for the more mundane aspects of youth programs such as cost, transportation, and scheduling. Extension is uniquely positioned to support the health and well-being of youth, and in helping meet various challenges through family engagement. Extension has talented staff with skills and expertise in building community partnerships, working within and on behalf of families and communities, and working in partnership with youth, families, and communities to develop new ways of working. This chapter explores ways in which Extension has promoted positive youth development through family engagement and offers new ways of thinking about how Extension might do this work differently going forward.

Parent and family engagement in early education programs is associated with better developmental outcomes for children. This chapter reviews theory and research on family engagement in early childhood programs, including home visiting, with an eye towards how dual-generation programs and services are delivered to support healthy parenting and enhance child development. We emphasize how publicly-funded school readiness programs serving low-income families, such as Head Start, serve as a key context for reaching parents and families with services that support the development of their children. Evaluations of interventions embedded within Head Start have shown that programs supporting family engagement at home and in preschool have direct benefits for young children; however, longitudinal evidence of impacts is less robust. Taking what we know about family engagement to scale requires a careful consideration of what is known to facilitate such engagement, and what barriers exist to including parents of culturally and linguistically diverse children in these efforts. We conclude our chapter with an examinination of the implications of our findings for policy and practice such as the expansion of affordable early care and education programs, increasing access to culturally sensitive and inclusive parenting programs, and outreach to families via greater integration across early care and education programs, schools, community organizations, and medical/health settings that promote health and well-being of children and families both in the United States and internationally.