Paper—Family Volunteers as Alternative Future Resources: School Leaders’ Belief and Practices Family Volunteers as Alternative Future Resources: School Leaders’ Beliefs and Practices https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v14i10.10189 Hazar Hekmat Malluhi British Institute of Economy and Policy, London, UK Nayel Musa Alomran (*) Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE nayel_shaker@yahoo.com Abstract—Schools and community engagement are seen as effective factors for making schools a thoughtful place. This case- study employed mixed meth- odology to explore the phenomena of parent involvement and to know the exact characteristics of the leadership style in the school. This case study examined and described school leaders’ perspectives, attitudes and practices towards par- ents’ involvement in an Abu Dhabi primary school using a variety of data sources including, interviews, open-ended teachers’ questionnaires, school self- assessment surveys and mothers’ council self-assessment surveys. The findings revealed that the school leaders effectively employ multiple collaborative, shared and transformational leadership practices to improve parent/family vol- unteering. Teachers and parents have good communications. The mothers’ council and the administration enhanced many different parental activities. There are some barriers in parents ‘participation like language and the lack of the awareness of important role of parents in the school. The implications of this study revolve around the important roles the school leaders have in helping parents feel supported and encouraging family volunteering. The school leaders have to increase the encouragement of parents’ involvement in general and fam- ily volunteering in particular. This study is a calling for a shift from random acts of parents’ involvement to coherent, comprehensive, continuous, systematic and equitable family volunteering approach. Keywords—Family volunteering, school – family partnerships, family en- gagement, school leaders, parents’ involvement, Collaboration, transformational and shared leadership, and family volunteering. 1 Introduction and Rationale There is a growing understanding of the importance of the relationships between schools and communities in playing a major role in the development of successful schools. Researchers recognize that schools cannot successfully educate children without community support [1]. Community-school engagement is seen as an effec- tive way for making schools thoughtful places for innovations, collaboration, and 88 http://www.i-jet.org