Working with Grantees - Whole Family Guide

The following resources provide information and tools for communicating with grantees, encouraging partnerships, and defining roles.

Communicating with Grantees

A set of tools and resources on effective messaging to grantees and other stakeholders to promote two-generation, whole family approaches

Encouraging Partnerships Among Grantees

This section offers tools and case studies from a range of sources and links to collective impact resources

Grantees Working with Parents

This section offers resources for grantees working with parents.

Job Descriptions & Roles

This section offers roles and sample job descriptions for whole family work.

A Word About Language

Whole family, multi-generational approaches meet the needs of and provide opportunities for children and the adults in their lives together. These approaches are highly contextual, and may be called “whole family,” “two-generation or two-gen,” and “multi-generational” approaches in some organizations, communities, and contexts. Particularly for Indigenous communities, an approach that supports multiple generations within a home or family is important. The goal of a whole family, multigenerational approach is to ensure economic, educational, and health stability and mobility for the whole family, using mechanisms and strategies that give both generations in the family a balloon, and not one a dead weight.

This guide uses “whole family” for consistency and ease of reading; and encompasses the meanings of these other terms.

This guide also uses “parents,” which includes caregivers, mothers, fathers, grandparents, and others who are in the lives of children. Families are defined by the families themselves in our view, rather than by an outside agency, and the guide reflects this as well.